


The Great Escapist

by 8sword



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Dean/Cas Big Bang Challenge 2013, Domestic Castiel/Dean Winchester, F/F, F/M, M/M, Nurse Dean, Student Castiel, Student Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-28
Updated: 2013-10-28
Packaged: 2017-12-30 17:01:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 100,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1021182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8sword/pseuds/8sword
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean spears him on a green-eyed look through the open passenger door. "Why do I get the feeling you just want us to spend the night together?"</p><p>"Because you're paranoid and ridiculous," Cas says. "I sleep five feet away from you every night; I could watch you sleep at home." </p><p>(An AU in which nursing student Dean and pre-med student Cas become summer roommates and maybe more.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: spoilers through S8, minor character death (off-screen), m/m sex. Medical stuff, nothing terribly graphic. References to alcoholism, caretaking, child abuse, homophobic slurs.

loversforlycanthropes' AMAZING art masterpost for this fic can be found [here](http://sweetpeafantasy.livejournal.com/2430.html)!

Soundtracks: [8swords' mix](http://8tracks.com/8sword/the-great-escapist-dcbb13), [loversforlycanthropes' mix](http://8tracks.com/loversforlycanthropes/the-great-escapist-fanmix)

 **notes:** Golem-sized thanks to [loversforlycanthropes](../../users/loversforlycanthropes/pseuds/loversforlycanthropes) and [diamorem](../../users/diamorem/pseuds/diamorem)! Loversforlycanthropes has not only created some gobsmacking art for this fic, she has encouraged me in its writing from the very beginning, back when I was despairing of this ever being worth reading. It would not exist without her. And the delightful diamorem put more work into editing this fic than I did into writing it! Her incredible comments and advice have made the fic a hundred times better than it ever could have been without her! You should definitely go check out her Big Bang, In the Shuffling Madness, when it gets posted Oct. 29!

 **disclaimers** : 1) Supernatural is the property of Eric Kripke and The CW. I have sprinkled canon lines throughout the fic in addition to the ones quoted in the chapter epitaphs. I do not own any of them. Nor do I own any of the proper nouns within this fic. 2) I am not a licensed medical professional. The conditions, diagnoses, assessments, and treatment plans in this work of fiction are based far more on textbook knowledge than clinical experience. They are as accurate as I have been able to make them, but please do not take them as medical "canon." 3) Similarly, I've taken great liberty with many of the locations in this fic. For example, although the University of Kansas in Lawrence does have a nursing program, it does not actually offer the specialized dual Family Nurse Practitioner/Acute Care NP program with emergency care focus that Dean is enrolled in within this fic.    

 

 

 

  

**1.0**

 

_"...then what the hell do we do now?"_

\-- "Torn and Frayed," 8.10

 

            When Castiel and Alfie were children, Dad told them the best bedtime stories. Mothers and ghosts and children and angels and the two brothers who met them all, who fought them or saved them.

            Castiel thought, then, that the stories were real. He thought he was named after an angel who pulled a Righteous Man from Hell. He believed it so fervently that he drew a picture of it in his second grade art class, and when Mlle. Hester wrote a note in his agenda asking his parents to come in for a conference, he thought it was so that she could tell them what an excellent artist he was.

            Apparently he hasn't outgrown his stupidity.

            A rap on the doorjamb makes him look up. His mother stands in the doorway, her fingers resting against the frame. She's already in her black suit for the service. "Time to come out of there, Castiel."

            "Is Dad here yet?"

            Naomi's lips compress. "I haven't heard Inias let him in yet, no."

            "Then I'll stay here." Castiel lets his eyes drift back to the motivational calendar hanging over Alfie's desk-- _DARE_ , it reads in white letters underneath a picture of a rainbow bisecting a blue sky--and waits for her to leave.

            Eventually she does, heels clicking on the hardwood floor. 

           

\- o -

           

            The funeral is short and sparsely attended. It's the first one Castiel's been to since their grandfather died when he was nine. That was right before their parents' divorce was finalized; Castiel can remember gripping Alfie's hand and trying to shush him while the priest spoke, because Alfie kept whispering, kept asking if Mother and Dad hated each other, "Cassie, is it my fault, it is because I didn't make an A in math and Mother's mad?"

            They were in the second row, back then. Now, Castiel sits in the front pew next to his parents, his hands empty, his mouth closed. He sits silently as the priest speaks, stands silently while the coffin is lowered, nods silently as a blur of people offer their condolences.

            Such a shame, they say. Such a tragedy. He was taken so young. What a terrible accident.

            Thank you, Naomi says.

            Thank you, Chuck whispers.

            Castiel does not thank anyone. He goes to the black sedan Inias drove them in and sits with the tinted windows rolled up, and does not speak when his parents get in, does not speak when they get home.

            Only when he is in the bathroom he used to share with Alfie does he make a sound, and then it's only the sound of vomit splashing into the toilet.

            He retches until his eyes and throat are on fire, and when he hears the clink of liquor bottles from the guest room across the hall he lets himself cry.

 

\- o -

 

            Dean frowns at the time on his phone, digging his chin into the tabletop as he stares at it, willing it to ring.

            It doesn't.

            He looks at the clock. Drums his fingers. Then pulls the phone toward him, ignoring the racket someone's making on the breezeway outside, and presses the auto-dial for Sam's number.

            The muffled strains of "Smoke on the Water" begin to play outside.

            "Dude!" Dean cries, jumping to his feet and shoving the door open. His stupid little brother's standing there, grinning with his phone in one hand and two duffel bags slung over his shoulder with the other. "I told you I would pick you up, you doucheface!"

            "Oh, nice, Dean, first time you see me in nine months and you call me a doucheface." Sam huffs but lets himself be hauled into a hug, returning Dean's smarting thumps on the back. He smells like the back of a cab, which was to say not real good, but he could be covered in horse shit and Dean would still be jamming his temple against Sam's the way he is right now. "It's been too long, Sammy."

            "Pretty sure this qualifies as a chick flick moment," Sam says. Dean shoves him off with a huff.

            "What the hell are you doing here anyway?" he demands, going to the fridge in an attempt to find something for Sam to eat. He'd planned on grabbing them something on the drive to the airport, to have it waiting when Sam and his stupid huge grin slid into the Impala. "I thought your flight wasn't coming in till nine!"

            "I may have told you that so that I'd have time to catch a cab home and give you more time to study." Sam's shrug and grin aren't even a little apologetic. When Dean gives him his Eyebrows of Doom, Sam exclaims, "Bobby told me you have three exams this week! I know how rough that is, Dean, I didn't want you to have to waste three hours picking me up."

            "Driving in my baby is never a waste," Dean retorts, then grabs Sam's shoulder and hauls him in for a hug again. "Damn, Sammy, it's good to see you."

            Sam clings for a minute. It's a reminder of the Octo-Sam he used to be, his sharp chin always digging into Dean's breastbone-- _sternum_ , he reminds himself, eyes catching on the anatomy notes open on the table--and too-long hair smelling like whatever food he'd gotten stuck in it that particular day. Dean relishes it, and lets Sam be the one to pull away this time.

            "So?" his little brother says, sitting at the table and examining Dean's notes. Dean pretends to be busy pulling soda out of the fridge for them, but he's watching over his shoulder as he does, anxious, the way he somehow always has been when it comes to school and his brother.

            But Sam's looking up with a mixture of disbelief and horror that Dean hasn't seen since the kid was twelve and practically shouting, "Holy crap, Dean! You have to give lady part exams?"

            And Dean's bursting into laughter, because damn is it good to have Sam back.

 

\- o -

 

            He wakes up the next morning to Sam's phone going off in the living room. Sam's bedded down in there, since Dean had downgraded to a one-bedroom apartment after the kid left for Stanford. He'd offered to make room in the bedroom for a blow-up mattress, but Sam had said, "Dude, I've gotten used to having my own room. There's no way I'm going back to sharing, even if it means couch springs."

            Dean had hidden the small bit of hurt that he knew he shouldn't have felt with a "Good, I didn't wanna have to deal with your gas anyway. You killed that roommate of yours with your burrito fumes, yet?"

            "I hate you," Sam had muttered through gritted teeth as Dean cackled.

            Now, Sam's voice is coming from the living room through the closed door, a mumble that abruptly becomes much clearer as he pushes up from the sofa-bed, the springs groaning audibly. Dean strains his ears to hear, pulling his blanket from over his face, but all he gets is "I'll be there, just stay where you are," and the sound of the floor creaking as Sam stands.

            Dean frowns, and scrambles out of bed to find out who the hell's calling his brother at ass o'clock on a Saturday morning.

 

\- o -

 

            His cell phone begins to ring again. Castiel fumbles inside the suit jacket he's still wearing to turn it off. When he does, the silence inside the car is almost overwhelming. He doesn't have the radio on, and in the leather-seated BMW his mother picked out for him two years ago, there's practically no such thing as road noise, just the quiet purr of the accelerator as he bears down on the gas.

            He's not sure what he's doing. His brain hasn't caught up to the rest of him yet, to the arms and legs that pushed him up from his bathroom floor and crept down to the garage and into his car, that steered it out of town and onto the interstate. That was nine hours ago, and Castiel still isn't sure where he's going, just that he's not going _back_.

            At 3:02 a.m., he pulls off the interstate into a no-name motel and collapses into a bed that smells of mildew. At 3:37 a.m., he shoves up with a start, realizing that he didn't think, that he was stupid, that he used one of the credit carts linked to his mother's account to pay for the room. He scrambles out of the bed, cursing himself for not changing out of his carefully laced Forzieri loafers before he left Syracuse and hopping out to the car with them shoved half on.

            He hightails out of the near empty parking lot with a haste born more of exhaustion and paranoia than sense, and as he pulls back onto the interstate, the night stretching out silent and tight around him again, his panic recedes, becomes foggy and distant. He feels closer to Alfie, suddenly, in the darkness of his car surrounded by the darkness of the night, like being underground, like being inside that coffin they'd lowered into the ground, the sound of the dirt thudding onto it.

            He doesn't stop for breakfast. Doesn't stop for anything. At 7:42 a.m., he's pulling past a sign that says _Welcome to Lawrence_. There's a McDonald's coming up, and he pulls in, splashing through a huge puddle in a pothole from an overnight storm he hadn't encountered on the road, and opens his phone.

            Sam answers on the fifth ring. "...Cas?" He sounds groggy, and Castiel recalls that he would have only gotten home yesterday; Sam's con law exams were always on the last days of finals. " 's that you?"

            "Would you like to do the summer term in Palo Alto?"

            "What?" Confusion colors Sam's voice. "Cas, we didn't get housing--"

            "I can take care of that," Castiel says, because he can; there's any number of apartments to sublease over the summer, and money isn't an issue for him, never has been.

            "Cas." Sam sounds awake now. "What's going on?"

            Castiel shrugs. "The registrar added some classes that sound intriguing. I thought it might prove more fruitful than a summer in our respective hometowns."

            "I got an internship here," Sam says slowly. "Sort of. One of my dad's friends wrangled it for me... It actually pays, so I would be able to cover more of my costs next semester instead of mooching off you."

            "I don't mind paying," Castiel says, and now he's starting to sound desperate even to his own ears. He stops and presses his lips together.

            "Dude, what's going on, really?" There's sounds like Sam is making his bed now, the sharp flapping sound his covers always make when he tucks in the corners of his sheets, so familiar to Castiel that he feels sick with how badly he misses it. 

            Maybe that's why he blurts out, "I'm in Lawrence."

            It isn't what he'd intended to say, he hadn't planned to tell Sam he was here at all, really, had just intended to ask how Sam was doing, had just wanted to hear another person's voice. But now it's out, and Sam is spluttering, "What?" and Cas is staying silent because he knows the "what" is rhetorical, that Sam heard him the first time or he wouldn't be spluttering to begin with.

            "Wha--why--" Eventually Sam settles on, "Where are you?"

            Castiel squints at the shopping plaza across the way. "At a McDonald's near a Winn-Dixie."

            Sam starts moving again--putting on clothes, if the rustling and snapping buttons are anything to go by. "Are you okay?" His voice has gone suddenly soft, the way it is when he's worried about the middle school children he mentors, or his female friends who have just broken up with their boyfriends and are crying into his shirt.

            "I am fine," Castiel says impatiently. "What is your address?"

            "Uhhh...let me come meet you," Sam says, instead.

 

\- o -

 

            By the time Sam arrives, Castiel has been sitting in front of a tray of McGriddles long enough for them to seep impressive circles of grease into the paper they're sitting on.

            Also, his mother has called five times. Six if you count the call from Inias that was probably her using Inias' cell phone.

            Nothing from Chuck.

            Sam pushes in through a set of side doors. He has a backpack slung over his shoulder, and he looks...different. Castiel is used to seeing him in shorts and hoodies, the shorts replaced with pajama pants at bedtime. Now, as he hesitates next to the garbage cans and glances around the restaurant looking for Castiel, he is wearing jeans and a flannel shirt; he looks older and rougher and...odd.

            Sam's eyes land on him, and he strides toward his table. "Cas." His voice and expression are surprised even though they spoke on the phone, as though he wasn't expecting to find Castiel where Castiel had said he was.

            "Me," says Castiel tonelessly, and pushes both McGriddles toward Sam. Sam puts a hand on the tray but doesn't move to unwrap them, nor to sit down.

            "What're you doing here, man?"

            Castiel purses his lips. "I don't wish to be in New York this summer."

            A moment passes. Then Sam raises an eyebrow, gently. "And?"

            "I thought we might...room together," Castiel says lamely. Only now does he realize what he had half hoped for, half expected: an offer to stay with Sam's family for the summer. To spend the school break with them the way so many of the other students at Stanford visit their friends' places of residence during breaks. Sam's house is a place of warmth, he imagines, with a mother who will smile and say that Sam has told them so much about him, a father who will shake Castiel's hand firmly and say that any friend of Sam's is a friend of theirs.

            "Hey! Sammy!" A voice comes from the front of the restaurant.

            Sam half turns, still standing. His mouth compresses as a man dressed similarly to him comes up beside him. "Dude," he says, voice low. "I said you could wait in the car."

            "And maybe if I'd trusted you to get me something that wasn't rabbit food, I would have," his companion says easily. His gaze is anything but easy, though, taking Castiel in, sharp and sweeping. Cas is suddenly and acutely aware that he didn't brush his teeth before falling asleep in the motel the night before, or change his clothes, or bother to look in a mirror to see what his hair might look like. He is, in fact, still in his suit from the funeral, and there might be flecks of vomit on the collar, God only knows.

            The man's eyes narrow. "Sorry to break up the party, but who are you?"

            Sam sighs. "This is Cas."

            "Who?"

            "Cas? My roommate? I've only mentioned him like fifty times, Dean, jeez."

            Dean's eyes change. "Cas _tiel_?"

            He says it wrong, all Midwestern twang, and Naomi would be pursing her lips in distaste --"I didn't give you an angel's name so a heathen could _butcher_ it"--but Castiel has long since given up on trying to correct people, and anyway, Sam is sighing and saying, " _Yes_ , now will you just go get your precious artery-clogger?"

            Finally Castiel realizes that this must be Sam's brother, of whom he rarely speaks, which is perhaps why he doesn't introduce him to Castiel, now. Sam's brother seems to notice this, even if Sam doesn't, for he hangs back a moment longer, looking at Sam expectantly. When Sam doesn't say anything else, just raises a brow, he shrugs and goes to join the line at the register, though not without another glance back over his shoulder.

            "Uh," Sam says when he's gone, and his eyes have gone soft and sincere again beneath his shaggy hair, "Cas, not that I don't love us being roommates, but you know I'm rooming with Dean, right?"

            Castiel frowns. "I was under the impression you were staying with your parents," he says as delicately as he can.

            Something in Sam's face changes. He shakes his head, hair falling over his forehead.

            Castiel is not, as so many have pointed out, a people person, but he knows enough for this. Enough to understand that there is something tender and even infected here, that he wishes Sam had told him earlier, and not only because he is angry with himself now, for expecting something like this from Sam in the first place.

            "I see." He begins to stand. "I'm very sorry. I apologize for disturbing you, Sam--"

            But Sam catches his sleeve. "Cas, what's going on, man?"

            Sam's brother is looking at them again. Standing at the soda dispenser, watching them from above the half wall that separates the dispenser from the rest of the restaurant, his eyes on Castiel's arm where Sam has caught it hold barely veiled hostility. He raises them, meets Castiel's eyes, and then he's striding over.

            "Everything okay here?" he says suspiciously.

            Castiel looks away, focusing on Sam, who's saying, "It's nothing, Dean. Cas just wanted to know if I wanted to room with him over the summer."

            "You kidding?" Dean says with a smile, like he's joking, but it's not quite enough to cover the edge underneath. "You just got here and you're already trying to skip out on me, Sammy?"

            Sam seems to bristle at this. "It's not like we have that much space, Dean. I'm sleeping on the cou--"

            "Look here, college boy," Dean cuts him off, turning to look at Cas. "I called dibs on my brother for the summer." His tone is still light, teasing, but Castiel senses, as he did before, that there is something more beneath the surface here. "Don't you go tryin' to steal him."

            "I wouldn't dream of it," Castiel says stiffly.

            "Cas," Sam says suddenly. He's looking at Cas with the clear-eyed look that will probably serve him quite well in court, piercing as it is. "Do you want to stay here for the summer? Is that what this is?"

            Castiel merely smiles, polite. "No, of course not. I'll see you in the fall, Sam."

            He walks outside, confronted immediately with the stench of diesel engine from a truck idling in the drive-through lane. He wrinkles his nose, crossing around the back of its bed, wondering why it is idling so close to the restaurant entrance, and has his question answered when he sees the tow truck behind his car.

            He breaks into a run. "Excuse me!"

            The tow truck driver barely looks up. "This yours?"

            "Yes, but--"

            He slaps a form into Castiel's hands. "Shouldn't've parked in a fifteen-minute spot." He heaves himself up into his truck. "The impound lot's at Third and Main, opens Monday at nine. Hope you got someone who can give you a ride." He shuts his door.

            Cas stumbles backward as the man starts his engine, mouth open. He gets a mouthful of muffler exhaust for his efforts and, coughing, he takes a few more steps backward, bumping against an SUV in the drive-through lane. The driver honks at him irritably, and he flips the woman the bird without thinking about it, stumbles backward again, dropping onto his ass on the curb.

            He feels, more than hears, Sam and his brother come up behind him. "Um," says Sam. "Looks like you'll be needing somewhere to stay after all."

 

\- o -

 

            They take him to a bar. A _bar_.

            "You over twenty-one?" The bar's apparent proprietor, a blonde flannel-wearing woman named Ellen, eyes him from over a crate she's got hefted on one hip.

            Castiel is inclined to lie. Sam, however, knows his birthday and is already saying, "Yes." Castiel contains his grimace.

            "Then I sure would appreciate the help," Ellen says. "Lily went and broke her leg, and Ash won't be back from school for another week at least. That's if he doesn't get arrested for his final project."

            Sam and Dean both laugh like this is something funny, which Castiel doesn't understand, because Ellen doesn't sound as if she's joking.

            "Dr. Badass my ass," she mutters, and thunks the box onto the counter, shoves a hand out for Castiel to take. "Any friend 'a Sam's has a good chance 'a becomin' one 'a mine too," she says as she shakes it. "He's also got a good chance 'a knowin' shit about how to mix a drink. Am I right, honey?"

            Castiel hadn't thought it was possible to be more stiff than he was. "You're not wrong," he says after a moment, feeling unpleasantly reluctant to reveal this shortcoming in front of Sam's brother. The other man is laughing at him, he is fairly certain.

            "All right," says Ellen. "Y'all get outta here," she tells Sam and Dean as she gestures Castiel behind the counter to join her. "Dean's been dancing in his pants for weeks waiting for you to get here, Sam, I know he's got more exciting things planned for you than loafing around in this dusty old place."

            "If you call making me sit through all the _Dr. Sexy_ episodes he's missed exciting, sure," says Sam with a grin, and leans over the counter to enfold Ellen in a hug. "You gonna be okay, Cas?"

            This is the most ridiculous question Castiel has ever been asked in his life, as the answer is quite clearly _no_. He nods, however, smiling politely as Ellen pulls a bottle of rum from a shelf behind her. "Of course."

            Sam grins. "I'll call you tonight," he promises before bounding off to join his brother at the door.

 

\- o -

 

            Sam does not call that night.

            It is just as well, for Castiel's phone battery is nearly dead, and his charger is in his car, which is in some impound lot in this forsaken town until the day after tomorrow. It is also just as well because Castiel's feet hurt, his legs hurt, his arms hurt, and whatever part of his body is in charge of being polite to sweaty-smelling, intoxicated men and women hurts worst of all. He wishes to take a shower to wash off the grime of secondhand smoke and his own sweat, but he has no clothes into which to change.

            He would also really like to just drop into the bed in the spare room Ellen showed him into and fall asleep and never wake up.

            He digs his nails into his thighs.

            There's a knock at the door. He jerks upright, rasping, "Come in."

            It's Ellen, wearing a blue robe and pink pig slippers and holding a small stack of folded clothes.

            "Figured you might need somethin' to wear." She sets them on the dresser. "They're some of Ash's old things, don't worry, they've been washed. You can take a shower, too, it's not like I'm gonna charge you for using water."

            "I didn't wish to get in your way," Castiel says.

            "Well aren't you considerate," she says, and there's something kind about her tone that he can't appreciate, right now. She ruffles his hair, then turns to leave. When she's got a hand on the door to pull it shut behind her, she pauses and looks back at him. "One more thing, Cas. Dunno if Dean and Sam told you about my daughter Jo? Don't have sex with her even if she flirts with you, or I'll tan both your hides."

            She shuts the door.

            Cas lowers himself back onto the bed. He only has time to _consider_ giving into the tears burning behind his eyes before he's fast asleep.

 

\- o -

 

            "Castiel. Castiel. Castieeeeel."

            Ellen's daughter, apparently, wakes people by straddling them. Because that is what Castiel wakes to the next morning, a slight weight on top of his stomach. Which is extremely uncomfortable, as he has to use the bathroom rather urgently.

            "Ah," he says, as delicately as he can with bleary eyes and morning breath. He lifts his arm slightly from his face to squint upward. "Jo, I presume?"

            "Aw, I figured you had an accent," she says in disappointment, sinking back on her heels. It puts more pressure on his bladder, and he hisses.

            Jo grins, grinds her hips. "You like that?"

            "No. I need to use the facilities." Castiel scrambles out from under her, heart thudding, because the last thing he needs on top of everything else is to be outed while he's stranded in fucking Kansas. God.

            The smell of coffee hangs in the air when he emerges from the bathroom down the hall fifteen minutes later, hair dripping onto the borrowed t-shirt and jeans he had the presence of mind to snatch from the dresser before he fled Jo. She's not in the bedroom anymore when he goes to place his clothes from the day before at the bottom of the bed, thank God, but that probably only means he'll have to face both her and her mother when he goes downstairs.

            Sure enough, she smirks at him from the table when he steps into the kitchen, raising a hand in half-hearted greeting. "Good morning," he says carefully.

            "Mornin'," Ellen says from where she's stirring a pan at the stove. "Hope you drink decaf?"

            "I...can manage decaf," he says, taking the mug she pours him. She points him at the sugar and creamer. "Thank you," he says, availing himself. "May I help you in any way?"

            "You didn't ask me that," Jo pouts at him, and Castiel automatically retorts, "Because _you_ are not doing anything." He's already scrambling for the words to apologize when Ellen lets out a belly laugh and says, "Ain't that the truth! Get off your butt and set the table, Joanna Beth."

            "Why can't Cas set the table?" she whines.

            "Joanna," Ellen says warningly, and Jo huffs, shoves herself out of her chair to slouch over to a drawer in the corner.

            "You sit down, Cas," Ellen says. "I'm figurin' you're pretty sore, after last night."

            Jo snorts even as Castiel carefully suppresses a smile behind his coffee mug despite himself. Their eyes meet, and he finds his smile breaking back out again, coffee nearly leaking out its edges. He closes his mouth quickly.

            "Ha! He _can_ smile!" Jo exclaims. She throws assorted knives and forks onto the table and throws herself back into her chair, shoving it close to Castiel. "Told the guys I'd break you."

            "The guys?" Castiel says.

            "My fellow jailbait," she says. "Madison and Tamara, you didn't notice them last night? We were trying to get your attention."

            "Many people were trying to get my attention," Castiel says, somewhat wearily, remembering the snapped fingers and raised hands and trying to remember who wanted what and how to keep track of it on their tab. Thankfully Ellen had spent most of the night behind it as well, letting Jo take care of the floor. Which reminds him. "I apologize for my slowness last night, Ellen. I will try to be better tonight."

            "Baby, you did fine." Ellen sets steaming plates on the table. "Damn better than fine, for your first time. You sure you don't wanna stay the summer?"

            Castiel, thinking she is just joking, smiles courteously as he brings a forkful of impressively fluffy scrambled eggs to his mouth. But she keeps looking at him, and he realizes as he chews that she is serious.

            He swallows. "Ah," he says.

            She quirks a brow and a smile at him. " 'S all right. I don't need an answer today," she says.

            Jo leans forward and says in a stage whisper, "You know she only offered to hire you because you didn't try to have sex with me, right?"

           

\- o -

 

            Ellen will not require his assistance again until late afternoon, so Castiel takes the opportunity to take stock of himself. His laptop, like his phone charger, is in his car, but Jo offers the use of her own as she heads out with Ellen for church. They ask if he would like to come along, but Castiel declines.

            "Would you like me to leave the house while you are gone?" He's not sure yet where he will go if Ellen says yes, but he's fairly certain he had seen a chain coffee shop at least a few blocks away when Sam's brother drove them here the day before.

            "Why?" Ellen says, picking up her purse.

            "So that I'm not in your home while you're not present."

            Ellen snorts. "Sweetie, if you were some sort of weirdo, I'd be more concerned about having you in my house while I'm in it than when I'm not. Stay in, go out, I don't care as long as you don't burn the place down."

            Castiel smoothes a palm down the leg of his jeans. "All right. Thank you."

            Jo brings her laptop down to the living room before she leaves, typing in the password with her hair hanging over the screen and keyboard so he can't see it. Castiel politely sees them off from the door before sitting down in front of it. It's an old bulky Lenovo, and apparently Jo still uses Internet Explorer, as it's the only Internet browser he can find among her programs. He's got half a mind to install Firefox or Chrome for her because Internet Explorer-- _honestly_ , he can hear Alfie huffing in his head, because he'd been an Information Systems minor as well as a Biology major, and nothing annoyed him like Internet Explorer, except perhaps bees.

            Fuck. _Fuck_.

            It's minutes before he unclenches his hands from his hair and swipes his eyes. Forces himself to concentrate on the laptop screen and log onto the Facebook Sam created for him. To find someone who's trying to sublease their apartment for the summer. It's not difficult. Within minutes he's sending an "I am interested in subleasing for the summer" message to Andy Gallagher, a boy from his creative writing classes who invariably comes to class with a bag of Bugles and smelling of marijuana.

            More difficult is figuring out what to do once he's back in Palo Alto. Most of his classmates are taking MCAT prep courses over the summer to take the test in fall, and now Castiel wishes he had waited, too, instead of taking the test in January. Wishes that he had gone home for Christmas rather than stayed in Palo Alto with Sam to study over the break, because if he had known it would be the last time he'd see Alfie, he would have gladly dealt with every frustrating, condescending Novak relative at the yearly family dinner. How pleased he had been to escape Christmas with his mother's family; how sly he had felt that he spent most of vacation writing a short story, not studying the way his mother thought he was. The memory of both emotions sits like bile in his mouth now, acidic guilt and sour regret.

            The third message in his e-mail inbox is from the English department advisor. She wants to know if Castiel still wants the slot in Professor Milton's senior writing seminar. Castiel traces the keys of Jo's laptop for a moment before typing,

            _Thank you for contacting me, Rachel. My plans have changed, and I no longer require the space in the seminar. I apologize for my delay in answering._

_Thanks you for your time,_

_Castiel Novak-Shurley_

            There's an online nutrition class that should pad his med school applications nicely. He signs up for it and peruses the syllabus until he hears the front door opening.

            "Look who we found at church," Ellen announces. Sam is next to her, ducking his head sheepishly as he grins at Castiel. "Get some shoes on, Cas, I'm takin' y'all out to brunch."

           

\- o -

 

            Sam makes a face as they walk into the Biggerson's. "Dean's gonna kill me when he finds out we came here for breakfast without him."

            Ellen gives him a sharp look as the hostess leads them to a table for four. "Where is he? I thought he was supposed to have the weekend off."

            "Yeah, guess someone called in sick." Sam drums his fingers on the table. "I don't really know what went down, just saw a note on the fridge when I got up."

            "Check it out! They have Turducken pancake balls again," Jo says in rapture from behind her menu. Castiel looks down to see a large flyer inside his own proclaiming **GOT BALLS? TRY OURS! SAUSAGE-WRAPPED CHIPOTLE BACON BITS COOKED IN PANCAKE DOUGH AND TOPPED WITH OUR HOMEMADE MAPLE SYRUP!** "You ever had 'em, Cas? They're so fucking good."

            "Joanna Beth, I know I did not just hear that word coming outta your mouth." Ellen ignores the face Jo makes. "Sam, make sure you order some for Dean, you can take 'em home for when he gets off his shift."

            "You really think they'll taste good cold?" Sam says doubtfully, tilting his head at his menu and flicking a glance at Castiel.

            Castiel does not think they will taste good cold. Most likely they will taste vile. But he doesn't get a chance to answer Sam anyway, for Ellen has already changed the subject, asking when Sam's going to let her cut his hair, because no one's going to trust him in a courtroom if he looks like the stoned kid from Scooby-Doo, and Jo's laughing because that makes Dean Scooby, and they're all laughing at jokes Cas doesn't quite understand because he's not part of this, not part of this family that isn't Sam's real family, and the sick lonely bitter feeling builds up in him until a voice says, "Sam, where are your parents?"

            The laughter stops. The table goes silent, except for the blood rushing in Castiel's ears because the voice was his.

            "Come up to the counter with me, Jo," Ellen says abruptly. "I wanna make sure the cook remembers not to put any salt in my order."

            She and Jo get up and walk away, Jo watching Sam uncertainly and Castiel belligerently, and already Castiel is saying, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that, I had no right--"

            "No," Sam says. He looks as young as his age suddenly, because Castiel always forgets that he is twenty-two and Sam is only a freshman, because Sam seems older than nineteen, seems older than Alfie. "I should've told you a long time ago, it just--" He blows out a breath. "When's a good time to tell someone, _Oh yeah, both my parents are dead. Just FYI_."

            "My brother is dead," Castiel says. "Just FYI."

            Sam's mouth drops open. He stares at Castiel. "Are you ser--holy shit. _Cas_." His hands are across the table in a second, gripping Cas's fists tightly. "When?"

            Cas doesn't want to do this now. Not here, in the middle of a Biggerson's Sizzlin' Grill and Bar, with his suddenly burning nose dripping onto a discarded Splenda packet. He shakes his head, pressing his lips together.

            Sam squeezes his hands more tightly. Castiel inhales, hard, through his nose.

            "That's why you took your exams early?" Sam says softly.

            Castiel nods jerkily.

            "I'm sorry. I know it doesn't mean anything, but--I am so sorry, Cas."

            Cas clears his throat, blinks until his eyes don't feel wet anymore. "I don't want anyone to know."

            Sam nods slowly. "Okay. Whatever you need, Cas." He releases his hands slowly. "Do you wanna leave?"

            Cas shakes his head. A moment later, Ellen and Jo slide into the booth, pointedly starting a conversation about the weird-ass toys in the claw machine, like an evil-looking stuffed squid and a plush muffin with a tongue sticking out of it. "Must be finger-licking good," Jo says, and Castiel doesn't laugh, can't laugh, but he attempts a smile.

           

\- o -

 

            Sam scuffs his foot in the mulch outside the Biggerson's as Ellen and Jo head for the truck. "I'll come with you to Palo Alto if you want."

            It's a generous offer. And now that it's been made, Castiel knows he can't accept it. "No. Do your internship, Sam. It will be helpful for you."

            "I don't want you to be alone right now, Cas."

            "He won't be alone." Jo slopes up to them like an alley cat. She hooks an arm through Castiel's, ignoring his frown. He's not sure how to take this, trades glances with Sam as Jo says, "Mom said she'll take you to the dry cleaner's for your stuff, Sam, me'n Cas are gonna walk home."

            Sam flicks another look at Cas. "I don't think--"

            "Go, Sam." Castiel attempts to detach his arm from Jo. "I would appreciate it if you would go as well, Joanna."

            "I'd appreciate it if you'd stop calling me Joanna," she informs him. "Guess neither of us get what we want."

            "Jo," Sam begins in frustration.

            "Sam," Cas and Jo both say, Cas firmly and Jo mockingly, and Sam huffs, stomps off to Ellen's truck.

             Jo waits until they've pulled out of the parking lot to drag Castiel onto the sidewalk. She lets go of him after a while, once her arm gets sweaty around his from the heat. Once they've turned down the tree-lined road to the Harvelles' house, she turns around to walk backward and look at him.

            "You're not how I thought Sam's roommate'd be." Her brows are drawn, her eyes nearly accusing. She kicks a pebble into his path with her scuffed sneakers as though to goad a reply from him. Castiel says nothing.

            They reach the end of the block. Two dusty pick-up trucks rattle past before they can cross the street.

            "Why'd you come here?" Jo hops over the storm drain onto the curb. "You coulda just called Sam on the phone. You got a crush on him or something?"

            "Yes, Joanna," Cas says acerbically. "I'm madly in love with him, and I came to Bumfuck, Kansas, to persuade him to elope with me."

            Jo's grinning. "You're an assface."

            " _You're_ a child," he retorts, tone far sharper than hers, angry at her, angry at himself. When she throws herself onto his back, knotting her forearms around his neck, he's too shocked and furious to shake her off. Just staggers instead, and then keeps walking stiffly as she gets her skinny legs around his waist, and for some idiotic reason that has to do with the way his eyes are burning, he stoops forward to accommodate her weight, puts his hands under her legs to keep her from sliding off. He used to let Alfie ride on his back like this on Halloween, at the end of the night when he was too tired to walk anymore. He still remembers that last time in his Constantine trench coat and how Alfie's fake hobbit feet got all tangled in it. How he'd held onto Castiel's rumpled tie to keep from falling off and fallen asleep still holding onto it, his hand slipping down the fabric until it dangled in front of Castiel's chin, fingertips smeared with chocolate from the Kit Kat he shared with Castiel.

            Jo bumps her head against his, tightening her arms. "You missed my house, Cas."

            "Was making sure you paid attention, _Jo_ ," he says, and hitches her knees higher as he turns back around.

 

\- o -

 

            Ellen's lying on the couch in the living room when Jo lets them inside. She's got the blinds drawn and her head in her hands.

            Jo slides down from Castiel's back. "Mom," she says in a voice so soft Castiel never would have expected it from her, stepping carefully toward Ellen.

            Ellen raises a hand to hold her back. "'m fine," she mumbles. "Just get me my pills, would you?"

            Castiel stays still as Jo disappears into the other room. He feels uncertain, sweat still drying on his back from where Jo was pressed against him. He thinks that maybe he should leave.

            Jo comes back into the kitchen with an orange prescription bottle and hands it to her mother as she goes to the freezer to take out a cold compress. Ellen's struggling with the bottle, hands fumbling; Castiel moves forward and takes it carefully from her. **Sumatriptan** , it reads, and below Ellen's name it says, **Helping Hands Clinic**. He pops it open and hands it back to Ellen. She shakes a pill into her hand and dry-swallows it, wincing as she takes the compress from Jo and puts it over her forehead. Then she makes a pained sound and shoves out of the room. Castiel hears a door closing and then the sound of vomiting.

            "Sorry." Jo looks young suddenly, tired and uncertain. "She gets migraines sometimes." She touches the bottle Ellen dropped on the counter before she rushed out of the room.

            "I understand." Castiel stands there for a moment. "Is there anything I can--?"

            "No, we just have to wait it out." Jo picks up the bottle, fists her other hand against her leg. "Um, I guess you can do whatever you want tonight, we don't open up when she's sick unless Ash is here. I'll call Christian to tell him not to come in."

            "Okay," Cas says, but he doesn't move. "Is it because of stress?"

            Jo glances at him. She looks a little amused, for the first time since they came in the kitchen. "What, her migraines? Why, you gonna diagnose her?"

            "No," Cas says stiffly. "I was just--if they are influenced by stress, I thought that us opening your establishment tonight so she wouldn't have to lose a night of revenue would be helpful."

            Jo considers this. "You're not Ash."

            "I am not."

            "But you're twenty-two. And Christian'll be here." She nods to herself. "Okay. Let's do it."

 

\- o -

 

            This second night is better. Christian, who hadn't been at the Roadhouse last night, takes over the kitchen, which is a good deal busier than the bar--something that often happens, he tells Castiel through the window, on Sunday nights, especially in the summers when most of the college kids have left Lawrence for the summer.

            "I thought Kansas had stricter liquor laws than this." Castiel sticks his hands into the pockets of the fairly awkward-looking black apron Ellen gave him to wear over a white collared shirt while he tended the bar. Jo looks much better in hers, hands on her hips as she banters with a few men gathered around an old Deer Hunter game placed incongruously in the corner near an equally old jukebox.

            "We still got a bunch of dry counties." Christian shakes a basket of fries onto a plate. "But most places approved liquor sales back in the 80s. Places like here and Manhattan, where you've got the colleges, you might as well, 'cause the kids are gonna find their alcohol somehow, right?" He pauses, looks up at Castiel as he swipes his forehead with the back of his wrist. "You go to KU?"

            Castiel catches the eye of a tired-looking man near the end of the bar and goes to pour another finger of whiskey for him, waiting for Christian to clear his throat so he'll know when to stop. "No, Stanford."

            Christian snorts as he slides the plate through the window. "I dunno how Ellen keeps finding geniuses to work her bar. You know Ash?"

            "I've heard him mentioned."

            "Ah." Christian's grinning like he's knows a secret he's not going to share with Castiel. "You're in for a treat when he gets here, kid." He taps the bell. "Order up, Jo!"

 

\- o -

 

            When he and Jo sneak back into the house at one-thirty that morning, Castiel's arm muscles aching from lifting and lowering so many bottles and holding them steady to pour, Ellen's voice rustles out of the darkness in the hallway. "Get in here."

            Castiel glances at Jo. They'd tried to be quiet coming into the house, since Jo said Ellen's migraines often last overnight, and noise makes them worse.

            She takes Castiel's wrist and eases Ellen's bed room door opens so they can peek inside. "Yeah, Mom?"

            Ellen's lying in her bed, the room pitch dark. But in the very faint light peeking from under her curtains, Castiel can see the gleam of her eyes, cracked open and pinned on them.

            "Not that you shoulda done it," she says after eyeing them for a moment. "But thanks."

            Jo grins. Ellen closes her eyes again, and they tiptoe back out of the room.

 

\- o -

 

            Sam calls and offers to make Dean drive him and Castiel to pick up Castiel's car, but Castiel knows Sam's job starts at 7:30, and the impound lot doesn't open till 8. He doesn't want to make Sam late on his first day, nor does he really wish to be beholden to Sam's disgruntled brother, so when Jo offers to drive him Monday morning, he accepts.

            Ellen's up early to see him off. She looks better today, hair pulled back and flannel sleeves rolled up as she follows them onto the front porch.

            "Well. It's been a real pleasure, Cas, and I ain't bullshitting you." She pulls him into a hug. "You come and stay with us whenever you want, you hear me?"

            "I--yes," Castiel says, and isn't sure where to put his hands. He puts one carefully on Ellen's shoulder blade, glowers when she snorts at him.

            He's pretty much just as awkward half an hour later, when he's unlocking his car in the impound lot and turning to look at Jo.

            "I'm not hugging you," she says, raising her eyebrow.

            "Why hug when you can sexually assault?"

             Jo snorts with the beginning of a laugh before she can smother it entirely, then glares at him. Somewhere between leaving the house and driving into the impound lot she's become hostile, arms crossed and lips pressed together. "Would you just leave already?"

            "Yes," he says, sliding in. Then he pauses, gripping his familiar steering wheel, and pushes back out of the car. "Jo."

            She raises an eyebrow.

            "When is Ash coming back?"

            She squints at him in the morning sunlight. "Probably next week. Why?"

            "Perhaps I should stay. Just until he gets here to help."

            Jo's grin is sudden and bright, like the sunlight bouncing off his windshield. "Maybe you should."

 

\- o -

 

            "You're staying?" Sam says in astonishment.

            "Only until Ash gets here."

            Sam's quiet for a minute on the other end of the line. "This is really weird, Cas."

            "I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks so," Cas says in relief, and Sam breaks into laughter. Cas feels himself smiling, suddenly, and for the first time since he left Palo Alto, it feels like something's broken between them, in a good way; it feels like they're laughing from their bedrooms in the dorm again, their doors open so they can call back and forth to each other until Sam gives up and comes into Castiel's room with his laptop to sprawl on the carpet beside his bed. He wanders over to Ellen's spare bed and sits on the edge, dropping onto his back to look at the ceiling as he listens to Sam laugh.

            "Hey," Sam finally stops laughing. "You're only helping at the Roadhouse in the evening then, right?

            "I imagine so."

            "Well, get this," Sam says. His voice is so excited it's gotten loud; Cas has to hold the phone away from his ear. "I was thinking. Shoot it down if it's stupid, but I was thinking about how you'd said you were gonna shadow your uncle in Syracuse this summer, right? Well, if you wanted to, till you leave, there's this clinic in town I used to volunteer at. They let students shadow the doctors there, and I was thinking you should do it."

            A hand grabs Cas's ankle. "Do it."

            Cas jumps so hard his head nearly slams into the wall. Laughter explodes from under his bed.

            "Cas?" Sam's saying anxiously through the phone, but Cas is scrambling to get both his feet up on the bed, crouching to look over the edge. Jo beams up at him, pushing herself out from under the bed frame like a mechanic on a creeper.

            Cas puts the phone to his ear again. "Sam, I don't think Ellen's daughter is from this planet."

            Jo flops onto the bed and grabs the phone from him, putting it on speaker. "Sam, you interrupted me and Cas having sex. Hang up."

            Castiel rolls his eyes.

            "It must not've been very good sex if he could talk to me on the phone without making any noises," Sam retorts.

            "It's 'cause he's a robot," Jo says. "We were having hot robot sex." She grins at Cas. "Hot alien-on-robot sex." She makes beeping sounds into the mouthpiece.

            "Ooh, stop, you're turning me on," Sam says dryly. Then there's a scuffling sound, and a squawk.

            "The fuck, are you having phone sex?" exclaims a voice that isn't Sam's.

            Jo cackles. "Oooh, yeah, baby, harder!"

            "Jo?!" The voice, Castiel realizes, is Dean Winchester's. "Get off the phone and go harass things from your own species, you little troll--"

            Jo snickers and hangs up. Cas eyes his phone a little mournfully, not having gotten to say goodbye to Sam, but a moment later, a text pops up from him, with an address and phone number and an order to **Call them.**

            "You should go," Jo says from over his shoulder. She's got her own phone out now, texting something. "That's where Mom goes, they're really nice."

            "Helping Hands Clinic?" he says, looking at the message from Sam and remembering the label on Ellen's medication.

            "Yep." Jo hops off the bed. "She's been going there since my dad died."

            There's more there, another story to be told, but Jo's plopping down at his desk now to investigate his laptop, making fun of his boring bamboo wallpaper, so he doesn't push.

            He does, however, check under his bed before he goes to sleep that night to make sure there isn't an 18-year-old under it.

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**rating:** M

 **warnings:** Vague description of part of a pelvic exam. Mention of a sex toy.

****

**2.0**

_"I can never go home."_

\-- "Pilot," 1.01

            Castiel shows up at Helping Hands Clinic for the Uninsured at 7:45 on Tuesday morning, wearing a pair of navy blue scrubs that are still stiff from the uniform shop he went to with Ellen. The tag rasps against the back of his neck as he climbs out of his car, itchy as hell.

            Inside, a white-haired woman at the front desk gestures for him to come through the old-fashioned double doors that separate the tiny lobby from what looks like a patient waiting area. It's full of a bunch of mismatched chairs and a small children's play area in the corner, scattered with jumbo puzzle pieces that look like they might show Clifford the Dog when they're put together.

             On the other side of the front desk, there's two more hallways, one much longer than the other, and it's the longer one that the woman points him down. "Ask for Becky, dear," she says, patting his hand with her cool, gnarled one.

            He doesn't end up having to ask for Becky, though, because at that moment a tiny blonde woman comes sailing down the other hallway. Her arms are wrapped around a thick stack of manila folders, and she's got a strange paisley-shirt-sweater-vest combination going on, to which is clipped a nametag exclaiming **BECKY!** with a smiley-face pin next to her name.

            Her eyes widen when she sees him. "You must be Castiel!" She adjusts her armful of folders to grab him by the elbow and half drags, half carries him with her down the longer hallway. "We're so glad to have you, any friend of the Winchesters is a friend of ours, especially Sam, he's just such a wonderful guy, oh my gosh, what's it like living with him, does he still wear Axe aftershave?"

            "Uh--"

            He's pulled into a cramped office and deposited enthusiastically into a chair in front of the desk. Becky dumps her armful of folders onto the paper-covered desk and plops down in front of her computer.

            "Novak-Shurley, right?" she says, already typing. She takes his license and Stanford ID, scanning them into a computer, and within minutes, Castiel has them back with a clinic nametag proclaiming him CASSTIEL, STUDENT VOLUNTEER.

            "Everyone's going to mangle your name, just so you know," she informs him, and Castiel isn't sure whether to be annoyed or amused. "You get used to it. Mine gets mangled too, and it's Becky, I mean, how much easier can I get? I mean, not that I'm easy, but you know what I mean. Ugh, I wish Meg was here to show you around, she's kind of a lot more comfortable with the whole new people thing!"

            She says this all in a breath and gives Cas a shy smile with her eyes skittering away from him as she tucks her hair behind her ears. He's not sure exactly what to say in response, but he doesn't have to figure it out, because Becky's saying, "Okay!" and standing back up. "C'mon, let's get you back to the clinical side."

            They make their way back down the squeaky wooden floors past the front desk and mostly empty waiting area. "So, have Sam and Dean told you a lot about the clinic? It's an amazing place, isn't it? Everyone who works here is a volunteer--except me and Meg and Bobby, we're sort of the skeleton staff--and then Missouri and Ruby, of course, but other than that, we're completely volunteer-run! We love our volunteers!"

            She points at a little heart pin on her badge which Castiel can now see says, _We love our volunteers!_ "We're really happy to have you. We can always use more help this time of year, there's not as many M.A. students here on their externships in the summer, you see, and the high school kids aren't out of school yet. Anyway! Tuesday's a kind of slow day around here--you'd think it'd be Monday, right? Missouri's here, she's our permanent NP--hi, Mrs. Barr!--but the rest of our providers are volunteers, so they only come in one or two days a week. Dr. A's here today, too, but he's not always chill with students, if you know what I mean? So I figured we'd put you with Missouri. She's doing gyn today, though, so don't get disappointed if you don't get to do too much, the patients usually really don't like dealing with guys with that stuff, you know. Tomorrow there'll be different stuff, like our ENT comes in if you'd rather shadow him. But at least if nothing else, today you might get to see some patients with osteoporosis and stuff?"

            "Okay," says Cas, as if more than half of this makes sense to him.

            Becky beams and leads him through another open door into a smaller hallway with chairs on either side. Baskets of old _Sports Illustrated_ and _Diabetes Monthl_ y sit under some of them.

            There's two doors on either end of the hallway, both propped wide open. Becky leads him through the one on the left. It's a large L-shaped space, one leg of which is empty with the lights off. The other features a long counter covered in more manila folders and two desktop computers; three mismatched stools with stuffing coming out of them; and three exam room doors, all closed. One has a chart in a plastic basket fastened outside the door and what looks like a toilet paper roll cut down the center with a big black handwritten **NEXT** on it hanging from the basket.

            The muffled sound of voices can be heard inside the rooms. "Sounds like they're both with patients right now," Becky says. She leans over the counter to glance at a file holder full of the manila folders, which Castiel realizes now must be the clinic's version of patient charts, for the one in the front is stamped with PENCILLIN ALLERGY. "Soooo, just sit here and I'll be right back--"

            But at that moment, one of the room's doors opens.

 

\- o -

 

            Dean slowly retracts the speculum and hands it to Ruby. She dumps it in the biohazard bag as he strips off the outer glove on his right hand--thank fucking God he'd remembered to double-glove this time, he'd forgotten on his last patient and his clinical site director had been there to see it, Jesus--and throws it away.

            "Almost done, Ms. Rourke," he says, meeting her eyes over the drape. "Just the bimanual exam left, okay?"

            "My favorite," she says dryly, and Dean flashes a sympathetic smile because yeah, pelvic exams are pretty much no one's favorite thing. His classmates have been making fun of him for weeks about being on a family health rotation that has him doing gyn exams twice a week on top of their required women's health rotation at the Health Department.

            "Any tenderness?"

            Layla shakes her head. Dean palpates in two more spots, watching her face for any sign of pain, and pulls his fingers back out. "Okay," he says. "No tenderness and nothing felt enlarged." He strips off his gloves, stuffing them in the red bag, and helps Layla sit up, pushing the stirrups out of her way. "We'll leave so you can get dressed, and then you can head out. I'll get Missouri to send in the request for the Depo shot and you'll get a call when we've got it in, okay?"

            "Sounds good," she says, and Dean gives her a final smile, ducks around the curtain pulled around the bed and slips carefully out of the exam room. It's habit to open the door as little as possible to squeeze out, since the clinic only just got privacy curtains for the exam rooms last month. And somewhere between opening the door and closing it, the hem of his white coat gets stuck in the door, so that when he tries to turn around, he's yanked back, nearly dropping Layla's chart as he stumbles.

            "Shit," he mutters, ears burning in embarrassment even though no one else was in the room to see him make an idiot of himself--

            "Those doors giving you a hard time, Dean?"

            Dean nearly jumps out of his skin. He twists around as he frees himself from the doorjamb, eyes landing on Becky, which, okay, that's a relief, because she's grinning at him and she could care less if he lets slip a few four-letter words here and there as long as it's not in front of patients. But standing just behind her is someone that Dean registers first as, _great, a student we can foist the vitals off on,_ and second as, _shit that's Sammy's roommate_.

            Castiel looks equally surprised, though his expression quickly becomes polite again. "Dean," he says. "I was not aware you worked here."

            Dean grunts. Becky looks at him in confusion, but before she can say anything about his less than temperate welcome, Exam Room 3's door opens up again and Ruby steps out, holding the bag with the smear kit to put in the lab's delivery box.

            She glances at them all, raises a blond eyebrow at Castiel, and says, "You do know there's a dress code here, right?"

            Castiel looks down at himself. He's wearing navy blue scrubs so dark that it's obvious they're brand new over a gray shirt with the sleeves rolled up his forearms. The colors make his blue eyes practically pop out of his face, not that Dean notices. "I was told I should wear scrubs."

            "I'm talking about your sex hair, genius," Ruby says.

            Dean chokes on a laugh. Becky looks horrified.

            Castiel's eyes flick to them. "I did not have sex prior to coming here."

            Ruby explodes with laughter. Becky looks torn between delight and horror. Dean...opens the chart in his hands and pretends to study it very intently.

            "Should we fix that?" he hears Ruby say as she leads him around to the other side of the room, probably to start showing him how to take vitals with the BP machine the way she does with all the high school and college students who come in to volunteer at the clinic. Dean would really love to eavesdrop on that party, but Becky's hesitating at the counter.

            "Maybe you should orient him, Dean?" she says uncertainly. "I don't want Sam to get mad at us for--well. Ruby."

            Dean snaps the chart shut. "Kid wants to work in medicine?"

            Becky blinks. "I think so, he said pre-med on his application? You'd know better than me, since he's Sam's friend--"

            "Then he'll have to get used to working with all sorts of people," Dean says, and pushes his stool toward the laptop on the counter a few feet down from Missouri's desktop computer.

            Becky stays where she is, studying him for a minute. Then someone calls her name from down the hall, and she sighs, hurrying out the door. "Coming!"

            Once the squeaking of her feet down the hall fade, Dean can hear Ruby explaining vitals to Sam's roommate. She must've covered weight, height, and blood pressure already, as she's explaining that Missouri's a real hard-ass about making sure to count patients' breaths per minute even though most providers don't worry about documenting it.

            "Attentiveness to detail is an admirable quality in a doctor," Castiel rumbles in that ridiculous voice, and Dean rolls his eyes.

            "Provider," Ruby says. "Don't say doctor, Missouri'll skin you alive. She's an NP."

            "An NP?"

            "Nurse practitioner. And they do _not_ like being called doctor, hotshot."

            "I see." Castiel is quiet for a moment. "What is Dean?"

            At that moment one of the exam doors behind Dean cracks open. "Ruby-girl," Missouri calls through it. "You ready to come help me with this pelvic?"

            Ruby jogs back to their side, flicking Dean in the ear as she goes, which Dean professionally ignores, paying close attention to typing up the request for a Depo-Provera shot for one 26-year-old female, 0 gravida, 0 para, as Castiel comes to hover at the counter. He's radiating an aura of _I'm not sure what to do now_ that Dean remembers pretty well from his own first days as a student at the clinic years ago.

            It's petty of him, especially considering he remembers what it's like to be in Castiel's shoes, but he kind of hates the guy's guts for how much Sammy talks about him, so. He jerks his chin at the chart and encounter sheet sitting on the counter and says impatiently, without looking at Castiel, "You wanna check in that patient?"

            He keeps typing as he hears Castiel take a breath and go to the door, chart in hand. "Mr. Turner?"

            "That'd be me." Rufus has one of those voices that carry, especially in the cramped back halls of the clinic, and Dean grins, has to resist the urge to swivel around in his chair and make some popcorn to enjoy the show, because Rufus is going to eat Castiel _alive_.

            "Boy, what're you doing?" comes Rufus's voice. "You gotta start the scale at zero before I step on, you're gonna make me fifty pounds heavier! Do I look like I weigh two hundred'n fifty pounds to you?"

            Dean shakes with silent laughter in his seat. Castiel is making apologetic sounds. Rufus goes, "Don't apologize, just do it right! Dean Winchester, don't think I don't see you laughing over there! Get over here and show this kid how to take someone's measurements right before I come over there and slug you upside the head!"

            "Come on, Rufus," Dean complains but pushes to his feet, heading over to the vitals station. "Can't you tell I'm busy?"

            "Busy my ass, you're probably Headbooking over there or whatever that stuff's called." Rufus plunks himself down in the chair next to the BP monitor. Castiel is standing stiffly beside it, holding the pediatric-sized cuff pressure instead of the adult-sized one. Dean's tempted to make fun of him for it, Mr. Pre-Med not knowing how to take something as simple as a blood pressure right, but the back of the guy's neck is visibly pink with embarrassment, and okay, Dean's gonna stop being a douche if only for karma's sake. He unloops his stethoscope from around his neck and stuffs it in his coat pocket so he can lean over to grab the pressure cuff from the basket.

            "First off, you wanna use this cuff," he says gruffly. "That one's kid-sized, and if you try to use it on a grown-up it'll make their blood pressure look higher than it is because it'll squeeze too tight." He takes the pediatric cuff from Castiel to disconnect it from the machine and reconnects the adult-sized one. "I mean, for a skinny lady, you know, the ones with the noodle arms, it's okay, but with anyone normal-sized you wanna use this one, capisce?"

            Castiel nods. Some of his flush has receded.

            "And when you're taking the pressure, make sure the patient doesn't talk," he says, looking at Rufus meaningfully. "It messes up the reading."

            Rufus purses his lips together with an exaggerated flare of his nostrils. Dean laughs. Then he looks over at Castiel. "He's gonna need an Accucheck. You know how to do one of those?"

            Castiel shakes his head.

            "You best not be planning to use me as his guinea pig," Rufus says.

            Dean rolls his eyes. "Relax, Rufus, I got you. Watch me, 'kay, _Cas_?" He says it the way Sam says it, except mocking instead of affectionate, and watches Castiel's eyes narrow at him for a moment, though his mouth remains firmly shut. Dean smirks a little and puts on gloves from the box on the table, stripping open a Band-aid and an alcohol wipe and swiping Rufus's middle finger with it.

            "You eat yet this morning?"

            "Nope," Rufus says.

            "That means we're gonna document it as a fasting blood sugar." Dean gets one of the cheap orange lancets out of the box. "Here's what you stick the patient's finger with. It doesn't matter what finger, except you don't wanna do the thumb or the pinky finger because their synovial sheaths go all the way down to the fingertips, and if you get 'em infected the infection can spread to the hand or the forearm, got it?"

            "Got it." Cas steps closer to see better, leaning forward slightly. "Does it matter where on the fingertip?"

            "I've heard people say it works better if you go more to the side--" Dean demonstrates, rotating Rufus's finger, "but then some patients pitch a bitch-fit if you do it there, so usually I just check with the patient to see where they'd be most comfortable getting poked."

            "Nowhere," grumbles Rufus, and Dean gives him an eye roll.

            "Yeah, yeah, old man." He pushes the lancet against Rufus's finger without any warning, Rufus gives a yelp, and Dean takes a square of gauze. "Okay, so you're gonna wipe this first bit off, throw it out. Make sure _this_ \--" He nods at the lancet, "goes in the sharps container. "But don't put anything else in there, got it? The clinic gets charged if we put any shit other than needles in the sharps buckets, and we've got no money as it is, so."

            Castiel nods, eyes wide. Dean feels a little stupid and turns back to Rufus's finger, putting the Accucheck reader to the bead of blood welling from his skin until the machine beeps. "While you wait for it to give us the blood sugar, you can give the patient the band-aid. Except Rufus is a hard-ass, so he's gonna say he doesn't need one," he says as Rufus waves off the band-aid. "Fine, man, but at least take some gauze with you, that one got you kinda deep. Been a while since I did an Accucheck."

            "Guess somebody's gettin' big for their britches, Mr. Nurse Practitioner," Turner drawls, and Dean grins as he writes Rufus's blood sugar on the chart.

            "Get your ass into a room," he says, then glances at Castiel. "Follow us."

            Dean remembers his first time in an exam room, too, looking around at the exam table and sink and stool and wondering if he should sit or stand, so he shoves a chair from the corner at Castiel as Rufus gets up on the table, pulling off his boots.

            Dean plops down on the stool in front of the desktop computer opposite the sink. "Well now, Rufus, tell me what we're seeing you on gyn day for. Your PMS acting up?"

            "Boy, you still ain't too big for me to whup your ass," Rufus says as Dean laughs. "Missouri had me come in today since I got work tomorrow, and I know you know that 'cause I see my lab results right there in your lap."

            Dean grins again, swivels to face the computer and bring up Rufus's EHR. "Yeah, your levels are looking pretty good, and your sugar just now was in limits, too. Only thing we're still worried about is how your kidneys're doing, so Missouri told me this morning we're gonna put you on an ACE inhibitor. She talked about it with you last time you were here?"

            "Yeah," Rufus says. "Might make me cough, she said."

            "Yup," Dean says. "Possibility of angioedema, too, like your mouth might swell up. Don't see how your mouth can get any bigger than it already is, though."

            "Ha!" says Turner. "Look who's talkin'!" Then he looks at Castiel. "Boy, you gonna let him mouth off to a patient like that?"

            Castiel sort of freezes. Looks at Dean in panic. Dean laughs before remembering Castiel is a Sam-thief and adjusting his expression accordingly.

            "Anyway," he says to Rufus. "Let me just check your feet real quick and write up your stuff and then you can get outta here."

            When he and Cas leave the exam room, there's another sheaf of papers on the counter. Dean tips his chin at it as he goes to sit at his computer on the counter. "Think you can do it on your own?" It's more a challenge than a request, and Castiel squares his shoulders and heads out to call in another patient as, behind him, Dean begins to type.

 

\- o -

 

            Sam is not picking up his phone. Castiel stops trying to reach him after two attempts, as he doesn't want to become _that_ friend, but he's perturbed that Sam didn't see fit to warn him ahead of time that his brother works at the clinic. That his brother is already practicing medicine and makes Castiel feel like an idiot.

            Castiel's feet ache as they haven't since his first few weeks at Stanford, getting accustomed to walking everywhere on campus instead of driving. After that first solo patient today, he was on his feet the rest of the day; when he wasn't getting vitals, he was standing to assist Missouri or Dean in Pap smears or fetching new gowns from the laundry room or filling out cytology sheets with Ruby saying derisively, "You're doing it wrong" over his shoulder.

            He rolls over on the unfamiliar bed and buries his face in the smelling-too-strongly-of-detergent pillow. He wants to go home. But there's really no such thing anymore. Not in Syracuse or Palo Alto, because home isn't a place any longer. It's a time. It's when Alfie was still alive, when he could take out his phone and dial Alfie's number and know that Alfie would answer.

            And that time will never come again.

 

\- o -

 

            Something's buzzing against his thigh. He fumbles it out, presses the green button. "Hello?"

            "Castiel!"

            He opens his eyes all the way, exhaling as he pushes up on his elbows to look at the digital clock on the nightstand. **7:26 p.m.** He must have fallen asleep. "Mother."

            "Castiel." The relief in her voice is already giving way to briskness. "Where are you?"

            "That information is classified, Mother."

            " _Castiel_." The relief is completely gone now, only impatience and anger left behind. "Do you wish for us to resort to juvenile tactics? Because I have had it up to here with you taking off and ignoring my phone ca--"

            "I found somewhere to shadow," he says over her. "Today was my first day."

            He can practically hear her lips pursing over the phone. But after a moment she says, "How was it?"

            That's all it takes for Castiel to miss her, suddenly. "Difficult," he admits. His voice is tight.

            "Well, of course it was. Medicine isn't easy, Castiel, I certainly hope I haven't left you with that impression. What did you learn?"

            "Oh," says Castiel. "This and that."

            Her laser gaze seems to work even over the phone. "What did you learn, Castiel?"

            "To take vitals."

            "And?"

            Castel stays quiet.

            "That's all?" she says. "What, do they have you working as an M.A.?"

            He closes his eyes. "Not exactly--"

            "Novaks are not M.A.s," she says icily. "For Heaven's sake, Castiel, come _home_. You can shadow your uncle Zachariah and he'll show you exactly what you need to know for cardiology, none of this ridiculous slumming!"

            Castiel stays stubbornly silent. Naomi inhales, and he can picture her nostrils flaring like she's right there beside him. "Your brother would nev--"

            "I have to go, Mother. I hope you have a good day."

            "Castiel!" he hears her voice come tinnily through the phone. "Castiel, if you hang up on me--"

            Castiel does exactly that.

           

\- o -

 

            He has just pulled into a parking spot at the clinic the next morning when a large black car stops behind his, idling. He gets out, pulling off his sunglasses to see who it is, and realizes it's Sam's brother, glaring at him through his windshield. When Castiel's eyes meet his, he looks away, and his car's engine growls as he pulls away to the other end of the parking lot, parking in a space there.

            It only hits Castiel once he's inside, signing into the volunteer sign-in binder in the staff break room, that perhaps he parked in Dean's spot. It seems, from how well the staff and patients appear to know him, that he has been working at the clinic for some time, so it makes sense that he would have a customary parking spot.

            He sits uncomfortably at one of the mismatched tables in the break room, plucking at his gray scrubs, to wait for Dean to come in so that he may apologize. He doesn't have to wait long; there's the sound of a woman saying, "Good morning, Dean!" and Dean's voice replying, "Hey, Mrs. Tate," before he's rounding the corner of the break room, shrugging his messenger bag off his shoulder so he can pull his white coat on over his black scrubs. He stops short when he sees Castiel, and the green stethoscope looped haphazardly around his neck slithers down to the wooden floor with a clunk.

            Castiel gets up to grab it immediately. But Dean's crouching, too, and their hands brush as Castiel hands it back to him. Dean's glowering at him, but the effect is mostly lost because at this proximity Castiel can see that his eyes are green, not quite hazel like Sam's, and there's darker brown flecks around the pupils, as if his irises are as freckled as his face.

            He opens his mouth to say something, but Dean's already pushing back to his feet, muttering a sullen "Thanks."

            Someone in high heels clicks into the room behind them, and Castiel turns, standing, to see a pretty dark-haired woman stopping behind him. She flashes a smile at him, then turns her attention to Dean, putting a hand on her hip. "Well, Dean, did you miss me?"

            Her voice is pure sex. Castiel's not attracted to women, but even to him that's what it sounds like. Dean's cocked eyebrow, as he turns from the coffee he's pouring at the counter and takes a sip from his cup, is also pure sex, but that observation is neither purposeful nor appropriate.

            Dean makes a face at the coffee and lowers the cup. "Always, Meg," he says sarcastically. "I miss decent coffee even more, though."

            "You could always have a sip of me," Meg suggests, and then, without missing a beat, turns her attention back to Castiel. "You must be Castiel Novak. I'm Meg."

            Castiel shakes her proffered hand. This is the clinic's volunteer coordinator, whose contact information Sam gave him. "Thank you for answering my e-mails so promptly."

            "Oh, we're always eager to get new volunteers. Especially of the young and attractive variety."

            "Ix-nay on the exual-say arrassment-hay," Dean says.

            Meg laughs. "Oh, baby, don't tell me you're getting jealous?" She holds out a hand for Dean's coffee, regarding Castiel from over the rim as she takes a sip and handing it back to Dean when she's done. "So, Castiel, do you know where you wanna work today?"

            Castiel glances at Dean. "Where will Mr. Winchester be?"

            "Ooh, _Mr. Winchester_ , is it?" Meg says, casting Dean a glance over her shoulder. He rolls his eyes and shoulders his bag again, dropping the cup in the trash and exiting the break room. "I'm not sure yet. Dean's our floater, you know--whoever wants him gets to use him." She eyes Castiel, licking her lips. "He's just always so _accommodating_."

            Castiel squints at her. She laughs and beckons him into her office. "Lemme look at our schedule." There's a huge calendar drawn in marker across a white board that covers one wall of her office. "It looks like Dr. Brady's here today, he does primary care. Does that sound like something you'd be interested in?"

            Castiel inclines his head in assent.

            Meg smiles. "And you owe me, Castiel, because _Mr. Winchester_ 's working with Brady today, too."

 

\- o -

 

            By the time Castiel gets to the set of exam rooms Dr. Brady will be using, across the hall from Ms. Moseley's, one of the exam room doors is already closed. Dean's quiet voice is just barely audible through the door, answered by a patient's higher one. Castiel carefully pulls over a swivel chair, not wanting to make a racket on the squeaky wooden floors and disturb them inside. There's a stack of charts waiting on the counter that he's too afraid to start preparing patient progress notes for after how badly he messed them up yesterday, so he clasps his hands in his lap and waits.

            He hears Dr. Brady coming before he sees him. "--yeah, just tell them to move the reservation to eight, it can't be that hard, can it? No, I already told him--look, I'm busy, I've gotta go. We'll deal with it later." He comes around the corner, pushing his phone into his coat pocket. He's a blonde man, young, looks a bit like a Ken doll, and the resemblance is only made stronger when he raises an eyebrow and smiles at Castiel with very white teeth. "Do I have a student today? Meg didn't tell me."

            "Castiel, sir," Castiel says as he stands to shake the physician's hand, leaving off the last name lest he get pulled into a conversation about his mother or her family's medical instrument company. "Do you mind if I shadow you today?"

            "Not at all!" Brady says. His handshake is firm, his eyes friendly. "Is that Dean already in there with the first patient? Of course it is. Well, tell me about yourself, Castee--what did you say it was?"

            Castiel does not roll his eyes. "You may call me Cas."

            "Cas," the doctor says, sitting in Castiel's abandoned chair. "Well, pull up a seat, tell me about yourself, Cas! You headed to med school?"

            "Yes, sir." Castiel looks around for a chair, pulls a stool out of one of the exam rooms. "Meg said you provide primary care?"

            "Eh, yeah." Brady waves a hand. "Around here you do pretty much whatever they need you to do. What college are you at, KU?"

            "Stanford, sir."

            "Well!" Brady says. "Impressive! You're not from Lawrence, then?"

            "No, sir."

            "I went to Penn for med school myself," Brady says, and looks almost wistful. "Came back here to take over the family practice, but there's something to be said for living in an Ivy League town--or Palo Alto, of course. Prettier girls for one thing, huh?" He winks.

             Castiel smiles politely. The closed door in front of them opens, and Dean steps out, holding a thick chart.

            "And here's Nurse Dean!" Brady exclaims, sitting forward in his seat. "You got any gynecomastia yet, Dean-o?"

            Dean smiles. Castiel is hardly an expert in the other man's expressions, but he thinks this one looks forced. "Not yet, Doc."

            Brady laughs, taking the chart. "You know what gynecomastia is, Cas?"

            "No, sir."

            Brady laughs again. "It's when guys grow knockers." He mimes the body parts with his hands, and Castiel looks uncomfortably at the waiting room outside, where he can see an older woman glaring at him, clearly able to hear the conversation. Dean, meanwhile, is filling out a progress note for another chart and ostensibly ignoring them, but the tips of his ears are pink. "Dean's the only guy in his NP class, so we joke about it. You don't get a lot of guys wanting to be nurse practitioners instead of doctors, do you, Dean?"

            "No, sir," Dean says, and steps into the hallway. "Molly McNamara?"

           

\- o -

 

            Castiel only catches glimpses of Sam's brother for the rest of the morning. He's usually at the computer typing quickly or getting patient vitals as Castiel follows Brady from one room into the next. He looks flustered, and Cas isn't sure why, since the patients are scheduled half an hour apart and Brady doesn't seem bothered or like they're falling behind.

            He doesn't let his wondering distract him from the patients Brady sees, especially as Brady doesn't bother to explain much of what he's diagnosing, likely assuming that Castiel already understands what he's saying. Castiel finds himself thinking wistfully of Dean's Accucheck explanation yesterday. 

            "Yup, this looks like basal cell," Brady pronounces as he studies the spot on Edward Carrigan's ear. "You noticing any blood on your pillow when you wake up?"

            "Yes!" Mr. Carrigan's wife gasps. "How did you know?"

            "That's what they pay me the big bucks for." He writes something on the chart. "The surgery for this is pretty straightforward, this kind usually don't metastasize--Cas, do we have a general surgeon here?"

            "Let me check," Castiel says. He slips out of the door, sees Ruby leaning in from the hallway. Dean's nowhere to be seen. "Ruby, is there a general surgeon here?"

            "Yeah, it's Dr. A-hole."

            Castiel blinks at her. She rolls her eyes,

            "Alastair," she says. "He's here on Tuesdays."

            "Thank you." Castiel knocks once on Carrigan's door and slips back inside. "Dr. Alastair on Tuesdays, sir."

            Brady nods, still writing on the chart. Castiel takes the moment to study the reddish spot on Mr. Carrigan's ear again, trying to remember the little he knows about melanoma versus other kinds of skin cancer.

            "Sir," he begins.

            Brady holds up a hand. "Just a second." He finishes writing, looks up at the Carrigans. "All right, you guys head up to the front with this and they'll schedule you to see Dr. Alastair and you'll follow up with him." He claps Mr. Carrigan on the shoulder and exits the room, dropping Carrigan's chart onto the stack that's building up on the counter and heading for the next exam room. He knocks once and walks inside. "Mrs. Mason! How are you today?"

 

\- o -

 

            A little past eleven, Brady sends Castiel out of the exam room to ask Dean where some extra specula are for him to check a patient's eardrum. Castiel can hear Dean's voice through one of the closed exam room doors, though. He decides that checking to see if Ruby knows where he can find the supplies seems more prudent than bothering Dean with a patient, so he walks carefully across the hallway only to pause outside the door when he hears Ruby's angry voice.

            "--all I'm saying is, it wouldn't hurt Meg to make Brady come to a training so we don't have to play secretary! Somebody needs to tell him this isn't the hospital, he needs to type up his own fucking notes--"

            "Ruby." Missouri's voice is warning.

            Ruby stops, makes an angry sound. Castiel tiptoes carefully backward, then walks normally toward the door again, making sure the floor squeaks ahead of him. Ruby comes shoving past him as he does, snaps at him, "Hey, you wanna do your job and actually get some vitals instead of sniffing Brady's ass?" and charges through the door he came from to grab a chart from Dean's waiting stack.

            Cas goes quietly into Missouri's side of the clinic.

            "Castiel," she says calmly when she sees him. She smiles, as though to reassure him, and he realizes his face feels hot, realizes Ruby's words may have bothered him more than he realized. He takes a deep breath.

            Missouri watches him closely. "You need something?"

            "I am looking for ear specula. Do you have any I could requisition?"

            Missouri snorts. "Yeah, I got some you can _requisition_." She leads him into one of the rooms and popping a few of the small black cones out of a canister on the wall. "If you need more, there's a supply closet on the other side, these're on the top shelf."

            Castiel thanks her and heads back to Brady's side. But the room they'd been in is empty. Nor is Dr. Brady anywhere to be seen. Castiel leans back into the hallway and sees the patient down by the front desk waiting to check out. Now that he thinks to look, he sees the patient's chart has joined the stack on the counter that he now knows is waiting for Dean so that he can type up their progress notes.

            Castiel doesn't know how to access the clinic's electronic health records, but perhaps if he begins typing them in Word, Dean will be able to copy and paste them into the clinic's EHR. It's worth a try; it's not as though he has anything else to do.

            He's gotten through two progress notes by the time the last exam room door opens behind him. He swivels around to see Dean glancing around, a college-aged girl behind him.

            "If you just head down to the front desk to check out, Lori, I'll get Dr. Brady to sign off on this prescription and then I'll run it down to you in the front, okay?"

            "Sounds good. Thanks, Dean," she says, and nods at Castiel as she walks out into the hallway.

            Dean's looking at Castiel, a little suspiciously, and Castiel is about to explain what he's doing with the charts, but Dean's saying, "Uh, where's Dr. Brady?"

            "He appears to have left," Castiel says. "I stepped out, and when I came back, here and the last patient were gone."

            Dean closes his eyes for a moment. "Please tell me he signed the charts before he left?"

            Castiel's eyes flick to the other stack of charts, the one of the patients Dean has been working up on his own, with yellow prescription pad leaflets sticking out of them. "Ah..."

            "Never mind," Dean says, and darts into the hallway. Castiel gets up to follow him, sees Dean jog into the lobby with his coat flapping behind him and flag down one of the white-haired men who escort the patients from the front desk to the clinical waiting area once their paperwork has been processed. "Fred! Fred, did you see if Brady already left?"

            Fred turns. "He sure did. Sorry, kiddo."

            Dean groans under his breath, Castiel the only one close enough to hear it. He turns and sees Castiel but ignores him, looking around instead. When he sees his earlier patient, he goes to crouch next to the chair where she's sitting, waiting for her prescription.

            "Lori, you're gonna kill me," he says. "Dr. Brady had to leave early, so what I'm gonna have to do is get one of our other practitioners to sign off on the prescription and send it to the pharmacy electronically. I'm not sure when she'll be done with her patients so I can get her to do it, so don't go straight to CVS after you leave here, yeah? I'll give you a call as soon as she's sent it so you know when to go pick it up."

            Lori bites her lip. "Is it going to be today? Because like I said, my dad--"

            "It'll definitely be today," Dean says firmly. "I'm gonna go sit in Missouri's office right now until she comes out. This guy--" He jerks a thumb over his shoulder at Castiel, "is gonna make sure I don't forget."

            "Yes," Castiel says, stepping closer. "Don't worry, Ms. Sorenson."

            They see Lori Sorenson out, then Castiel follows Dean back to Brady's work area. Dean's not saying anything, but he's clicking his pen with his thumb at a furious pace. When they get back to the stack of charts, he stuffs it in one of his coat pockets and heaves the stack into his arms. "I'll be right back."

            "I don't understand," Castiel says as he steps out of the way so that Dean can pass him. "You can't sign off on your own prescriptions?"

            "I'm just a student." Dean shifts them on his hip. "This is one of my rotations. I can see the patients and write the prescriptions, but it's done under the preceptor's license, so they have to review my diagnoses and treatment plans and sign off on the prescriptions." He hesitates a minute, shifting the stack again, then says, "I should've made sure Brady signed off on my charts before he left, it's my fault. Sorry if I, like...snapped at you."

            Castiel shakes his head. "Now that I know, I'll be able to remind the physicians for you."

            Dean gives him a weird look. But it's not unhappy, exactly, so Castiel counts it as a win as Dean jogs over to Missouri's side. Castiel hears the thump as he sets the stack of charts down on the counter and Dean's low voice talking in a rush, then Missouri's: "Dean Winchester, I oughta whack you with a wooden spoon!"

            Castiel grimaces for Dean's sake, but then Dean says, "Why, Missouri, I didn't know you were that kinky," which means she must not be giving him that hard of a time.

            Dean runs back onto Brady's side a few moments later. "Okay," he says breathlessly. "That's taken care of. You, um--what're you doing with those?"

            Castiel opens the chart wider to show the progress note he is typing. Dean looks back and forth from the screen to the progress note and seems, well, stunned.

            "You," he says, then halts. "You didn't have to do that."

            "First and foremost this is a place of helping, yes?" Castiel says. "The helping comes before the learning. I allowed the latter to come first today. I should not have. I will not neglect you like this again, I promise."

            Dean gapes at him, then frowns. "Look, you really...you really didn't have to do this," he says finally. "I mean, thank you. Really. But I've got the rest. Go...get lunch or something."

            Castiel hesitates. "I would prefer if you let me help you."

            Dean shakes his head. "Seriously, Cas." The nickname's sincere this time, not insolent like it was yesterday. "Go get lunch. You've helped me a lot already, I swear."

            Castiel purses his lips but nods. He pauses at the doorway. "Can I get you anything when I go?"

            Dean looks up as he pulls himself toward the computer. "What are you, my maid? No wonder Sam likes you, you must wait on him hand and foot or something."

            Cas doesn't say anything, just raises an expectant brow.

            " _No_ ," Dean says. Then looks guilty. "Seriously. Thank you, though." When Cas doesn't move, he rolls his eyes. "Goodbye, Cas."

            He turns back to the computer, and after a moment longer, Castiel finally leaves.

 

\- o -

 

            But he brings a sub sandwich for Dean anyway, noting the different cars that have filled the clinic's parking lot for the afternoon shift.

            He had texted Sam to see whether he knew what Dean would prefer for lunch, but by the time Sam texted back Castiel was already driving back.

            **dude what ru getting dean lunch for???**

            Then, **he'll eat anything, he's a human dumpster**.

            As Cas pulls into a parking spot, his phone chimes with another text. **this is the most pointless job ever.** **mightve been better just to take more classes over the smmr**

            Castiel's thumb hovers over the keypad. A few days ago, maybe even yesterday, he would've immediately texted back, **Then let's go**. But today...

            Today's the first day he hasn't thought of Alfie every other breath.

           

\- o -

 

            Inside, Dean's still where he was when Cas left, but he's talking to a red-haired woman perched on the counter, both of them doubled over in laughter.

            "--and he'd written on the radiology report, I shit you not," the woman says, " _FOS_!"

            Dean's clutching his stomach and gasping as tears stream from his eyes.

            "Oh my god," the woman wheezes, "it was the best day of my life. He turned _so_ red."

            "I'd have died," Dean manages. "Holy shit, I would've died."

            "Right?!" the woman exclaims. Then, as she wipes tears from her eyes, she sees Castiel. "Hey there!" she says cheerily. "You new?"

            Dean turns in his chair to see Castiel, then looks back at the woman, jerking his head at Castiel. "This is Sam's roommate."

            "Holy strawberries, Batman!" she exclaims. "You're way older than I thought."

            "No, I think that's the scruff," Dean says, which makes Castiel touch his jaw self-consciously.

            The woman arches her eyebrows at him, and Dean's ears turn pink. He turns away, muttering something, and the woman hops off the counter, coming over to Cas. She's wearing eggplant purple scrubs, and there's a large Dumbledore's Army pin on her badge. "Hey, I'm Charlie. Sorry Dean wasn't polite enough to introduce me."

            "Castiel," he says, grasping her hand. It's calloused in ways he's only ever encountered in... He peers at her. "Do you fence?"

            Her face lights up in a grin. "Even better! I LARP."

            "Ah," Castiel says.

            She frowns at him. "Are you judging me? You're judging me. Dean over here LARPs too, you know. When I can drag him away from studying for long enough."

            Dean lets his head fall back against the chair. "Charlie..."

            "That's Your Highness to you," she says, and heads past Castiel into the hallway with a clap to his shoulder and a "Ta ta, Judgey McJudgerton."

            Castiel watches her go. Then turns back to Dean, not allowing himself to feel disappointment. It's not as though he's in any state to be thinking about a relationship right now, even if Dean wasn't Sam's brother. "I apologize. I didn't mean to interrupt your time together."

            Dean shrugs. "Not really a big deal." He looks at the bag Castiel is holding. "What's that?'

            "For you." Castiel hands it to him.

            Dean pulls his hands back. "Dude, I told you you didn't have to--

            "I wished to," Cas says firmly. "I would have bought another one had I known your girlfriend would be present. I apologize."

            Dean rolls his eyes with the air of someone tired of explaining something repeatedly. "Charlie's not my girlfriend."

            Castiel tilts his head. Dean tilts his own back. It takes Castiel a moment to realize that he's mocking him. His lips compress.

            Dean's mouth hooks up at the corner. "You're kind of a weirdo, aren't you, kid."

            "I'm not a kid," Castiel says, perhaps a little irritably. "I'm 22."

            Dean's eyebrows go up. "You're not a freshman?"

            "No. A junior. I would be a senior, but I contracted mono when I was young. I was out of school for a year." Castiel clears his throat and pushes the bag with the sandwich into Dean's hands.

            Dean considers the bag for a moment. "How'd you end up rooming with a freshman?"

            "An error on the Housing Department's part. Sam was accidentally assigned to an all girls' dorm."

            Dean's eyes go wide. "Are you serious?"

            "I am."

            Dean lets out a whoop. "Dude! He never told me that!"

            Castiel smirks. "I can't imagine why."

            "Hey." Dean levels a finger at him, grinning. "Watch the sass, kid."

            Castiel smiles. Dean grins back at him for a moment longer, then looks away and clears his throat. "I'm, uh. Gonna go eat this." He holds up the bag. "You remember where Meg's office is so you can find out where you're working this afternoon?"

            The moment's gone. Castiel lets his smile fade. "Yes. See you later."

 

\- o -

 

            Sammy's roommate is _weird_ , and no doubt about it. Dean considers this as he chews on his meatball sub, until a finger flicks him in the side of the head.

            "Ow! What the hell, Bobby?"

            "How many times've I told you not to eat over my files, boy?"

            Dean looks down at the table he's got his elbows on. He thought he'd shoved all the files out of the way, but now he sees he's missed a whole stack, ones interspersed with neon green papers that means the charts are headed to the referrals office as soon as Bobby finishes with them. "Looks like you're fallin' behind, old man."

            "Yeah, well." Bobby grunts, wheels himself over to the fax machine. "You weren't the only one lookin' forward to your brother comin' back for the summer. Makes a difference, havin' extra help back here."

            Dean leans back in his chair. "I could come by after we finish with our patients this afternoon."

            Bobby gives him a stink-eye. "Don't even think about it, boy. You think I didn't hear about that shift you picked up Sunday?"

            Dean rolls his eyes. "A little overtime never hurt anybody, Bobby."

            "Hmph," is all Bobby says, and tosses something at Dean's head. It's a little tin of those chocolate-coated coffee beans, the fancy Starbucks kind one of the Friday afternoon volunteers always leaves in the break room. Bobby hates the things, but Sam loves 'em.

            "Thanks, old man," Dean says, grinning, and pockets them in his scrubs.

 

\- o -

 

            Wednesday afternoons at the clinic are great. First because any students usually go with Dr. Isaac, what with him having the patience of a saint and not yelling at them for getting in the way or for how excited they get over, like, an ingrown toenail. And second because on Wednesdays, Dean gets to work the cardiology clinic with Charlie.

            Technically, he works with Dr. Roman, since Charlie's a PA and Roman is her supervising physician when they work at the clinic, but most of the time Roman pretends Dean doesn't exist, which is nice in its own way. Roman's a dick, but in that _I'm so much better than everyone else in the world that I don't really give a shit what anyone else does_ way that means he doesn't yell at Dean or Charlie the way some of the docs Dean's worked with chew out their nurses and PAs. All in all, it's a pretty relaxing arrangement, and maybe it's irony that cardiology days are the days Dean's blood pressure is the lowest.

            There's just one problem, though, when he gets to Roman's side of the clinic after chucking his lunch trash. And that problem is that Charlie isn't waiting in her self-proclaimed Swivel Throne of Awesomeness to slide Dean's share of the patients toward him. Castiel's sitting there instead. Straight-backed and as stare-y as ever.

            "Uh, hey." Dean pulls his white coat back on. "Dr. Isaac's actually on that side." He inclines his head toward Missouri's side of the clinic.

            Castiel does his slow blink thing. "I'm aware. I asked Ms. Masters if I could shadow you again this afternoon."

            Dean's immediately on his guard. "Why?"

            Castiel stands. "I find your method of teaching effective."

            Dean does a blink of his own, and a snort. "Uh, thanks? But I'm not a teacher."

            Castiel continues to look at him expectantly. Dean begins to regret accepting the sandwich. It seems like it must have cemented some social contract he wasn't aware of.

            "I told you, I'm a student." Dean takes his stethoscope out of his pocket to loop around his neck again. "Remember? I'm still learning most of this stuff."

            Castiel shrugs. "Perhaps that's why you're more careful to explain things as you do them. Dr. Brady was informative, but I currently know too little about medicine to understand most of what he said."

            Dean's not sure if that was a compliment or not. "Look, I'm an _NP_ student. You're pre-med, right? Doctors learn on a different model or some shit. I only know the nursing stuff, it's not the same."

            Castiel studies him. "Does it make you uncomfortable to be followed?"

            Dean bristles. "Look, I'm not _uncomfortable_. I'm just trying to save your overachiever ass--"

            "I appreciate your caring attitude toward my ass," Castiel says calmly, and of course that's when Dr. Roman and Charlie come in, Charlie pushing a cart stacked with charts.

            Roman cocks an eyebrow. Dean's ears go hot. But see, and here's what he likes about Roman, the guy just grabs a chart and his white coat from the rack in the corner and goes to sit at the far end of the counter like he didn't hear anything.

            Charlie's not quite as polite. She mouths, _Where do you find these guys?_ and shoves the cart toward Dean as she goes to get her own coat. Dean grits his teeth, but before he can say anything, Castiel beats him to it.

            "I apologize. I merely meant to say that I appreciate your concern that your teaching methods would not assist me in medical school, but I would appreciate it if you would allow me to learn from you regardless."

            Dean chews on his lip, looking at Castiel. Castiel looks back, until Roman leans back in his own swivel chair. He's studying Castiel with something approaching interest.

            "Do I know you?"

            Castiel turns toward Roman, only breaking eye contact with Dean after a moment. "I apologize. I should have introduced myself. Castiel Novak-Shurley."

            Dean's not _quite_ mature enough yet to completely suppress a smirk at Castiel's unfortunate last name.

            "Ah," Roman says. "A Novak. I believe I went to school with your mother."

            "Columbia?"

            "Undergrad, actually. Princeton." Roman leans forward in his chair. "You want to learn from Mr. Winchester here?"

            Castiel's eyes flick back to Dean. "Yes, sir."

            "His teaching is probably unorthodox, if it's anything like his taste in cars, I'll give you that," Roman says, and Dean's jaw is dropping. He hadn't realized Roman even knew his last name, much less what car he drives. "But his work is more than acceptable. You could learn a lot from him."

            Dean exchanges a look with Charlie, who is being totally unhelpful with the smirk she's only half trying to hide behind a chart. "Dr. Roman, I was telling him that NPs learn from a different model--"

            "It's true that NPs don't practice from the clinical model, but I don't see that anything you would teach him would be anything but helpful, Mr. Winchester. Unless you teach him to administer epinephrine to the genital area."

            Dean flushes scarlet. "Seriously? We're going to bring that up?"

            "Oh yeah," Charlie says happily.

            Castiel tilts his head.

            "Fingers, nose, toes, and hose, dude," Charlie says, counting off on her fingers. "Those are the places you don't inject lidocaine with epi, okay?"

            Castiel thinks for a moment. "Hose refers to the penis?"

            Oh my God. Dean is going to die of mortification.

            "Ding ding ding!" Charlie says, clapping him on the back. She grins and adds, "Dong."

            Dean chucks a highlighter at her.

            Castiel glances at Charlie's hand on his shoulder, looking more curious than offended. "Why not those body parts?"

            "Epinephrine's a vasoconstrictor. Makes your blood vessels tighten up." Charlie holds up a finger. "You give it with the anesthetic to reduce bleeding when you're doing surgery in an area, right? But if you're in an extremity that's not getting blood from anywhere _except_ the blood vessels you just clamped up...?"

            "Then they are no longer receiving blood." Castiel nods in comprehension. "That is dangerous."

            "Yes," says Roman. "I believe Dean has a very interesting analogy comparing it to cock rings, should you like to hear it someday."

            99.9% of Dean wants to melt under the creaky floorboards and become one with the foundation underneath. The other 0.01% flashes a grin around the flush creeping up his neck and says, "Hey, whatever helps you remember it for the test, right?"

            "Right," Charlie says loyally, though she is clearly trying to swallow down laughter. "It definitely saved my butt."

            "But did it save your hose?" Castiel says, straight-faced. Charlie and Dean look at him for a moment before busting into laughter. Even Roman cracks a smirk.

 

\- o -

 

            "Mr. Elkins?" Dean knocks on the door as he opens it. A tall, heavy-browed man sits in the chair next to the exam table, looking up. Dean holds out his hand to shake. "I'm Dean Winchester, I'm a nurse practitioner student working with Dr. Roman today. This is Cas Novak--" He figures it's just as easy to whack Castiel's name into something easier, "he's a pre-med student. Do you mind if he sits in with us today?"  
            "No, I guess that's fine." Elkins shifts in his seat to pull a sheaf of papers out of the back papers of his jeans. "These're the papers they gave me when I left the emergency room. The lady on the phone said I should bring 'em with me."

            "That's great." Dean takes them. "Otherwise we have to fax the hospital to get them to send copies to us, and you have to sign all these release forms--it's a major pain in the ass." He waves the papers. "So you're officially my favorite person for bringing them in."

            Elkins smiles, rubbing his knee. "Do I get a prize for that?"

            "Just the prize of my presence." Dean flashes a grin, setting the papers down with the chart on the exam table and pulling up the swivel stool from in front of the computer. "Can you tell me about why you went to the ER?"

            Elkins glances at Castiel, who's sitting down in the other chair in the room to listen. "Well, on Saturday this leg--" He bends over to roll up the right leg of his jeans, showing it to Dean, "it was hurting all day. "And when I got home from work and I was changing, I noticed it was all swelled up. Swear to God, it was this big." He makes a large circle with his hands. "And I figure maybe I got stung by something, right? So I went to the emergency room. And they told me I had some kind of blood clot."

            "A deep venous thrombosis?"

            "Yeah, that," Elkins says with a nod. "So they put me on some medications and they did an EKG and said I needed to come see my doctor."

            "You usually see Dr. Isaac, right? I've seen you in here a few times."

            Elkins seems pleased to be recognized; he straightens, shoulders coming up. "Yeah, I do. But he said I should see Dr. Roman first, what with him being the heart doctor. Said he's gotta sign off on the meds I need now."

            "Yep," Dean says. "Any of the patients at the clinic who have atrial fibrillation come to cardiology clinic to see Dr. Roman."

            "They said I've got that, too." Elkins is frowning. "The atrial thing."

            "Yep," Dean says again. He spreads Elkins' papers out in front of him and beckons Cas over as well. "Here's what happened, Mr. Elkins." He turns over a spare progress note that he'd brought in with him, drawing a pretty clumsy leg. "So I'm not an artist, sue me," he says as Cas snorts and Elkins looks like he's trying not to laugh. "With a DVT, which is what you had, you have a clot in one of your veins that causes blood to back up, which is why you got that swelling. Does that make sense?" When Elkins nods, he glances back at Cas, who also nods.

            "What the doctor you had in the ER did was, he wanted to figure out where that clot came from. Sort of," Dean says. "He did an EKG to take a look at your heart, and that's where the atrial fibrillation comes in." He draws another shape, this one a circle separated into four parts. "You've got four chambers in your heart, right? Two atria on the top and two ventricles on the bottom. When you have atrial fibrillation, the atria aren't pumping blood the way you want them to, so blood can pool in them--" He colors the top chambers in with scribbles, "and make clots. Then these clots can go anywhere in the body and cut off the blood from getting where it needs to go--kind of like when you get clogs in your fuel filter, you know?"

            "Then your engine stalls," Elkins says, brows knit.

            "Exactly!" Dean says. "And when it happens in the body, you can get a stroke if the way to your brain is the part that's clogged. Or it can clog in your lungs, or it can clog a vessel in your leg, and that's when we call it a DVT."

            Elkins sits back. "So I got the DVT because of what's wrong with my heart."

            "Probably." Dean folds up the paper, pushing the stool toward the trash can so he can throw it out; nearly flinches when Castiel's hand touches his arm. He looks up and sees Castiel flicking his eyes from the paper to Dean with a _May I?_ in his eyes. Dean relinquishes the paper, feeling weirdly proud. He scoots his stool back to Elkins again. "People without a-fib can get clots too--you know how when they go on a plane they tell you to get up and walk around? That's to keep your blood moving in your legs so you don't get a DVT."

            Elkins reaches for a crinkled brown paper bag sitting on the exam table and shakes out a couple of orange pill bottles. He's frowning. "So they said that these're for my heart. What're they doing, do they fix it?"

            Dean picks up the bottles, checking them. "What we've got here are blood thinners. What you're really scared of when you've got a-fib is you getting clots in dangerous places like your brain or your lungs, right?" Again, he waits for Elkins to nod. Patient education is one of Dr. Lee's biggest emphases in class, making sure that the patient understands what is being explained, that they're not just having information thrown at them. And he's got a personal stake in it, remembers so many times standing on the other side of the hospital bed having no idea what the doctor was saying to him, what it meant. "So what these do is thin your blood to make it less likely that clots will form."

            Elkins is still frowning. "Can't they just fix my heart?" His expression turns stormy. "Or is it something you gotta have insurance for?"

            Dean smiles ruefully. "Yes and no. There's ways, and Dr. Roman's gonna talk them over with you once we do a fuller work-up, but a lot of the time, it's safer to try and prevent you from getting clots than go in and start messing with your heart. It's a little more complicated than a fuel filter, you know?"

            Elkins chuckles. "Too bad, it'd be cheaper."

            "I hear you," Dean says, and picks up Elkins' chart. He glances over. "You got any questions, Cas?"

            Cas moves closer, leaning over Dean's shoulder to see Elkin's hospital papers. "What is the procedure now? Will Mr. Elkins simply continue his medications?"

            Dean pulls out Elkins' encounter sheet. "Here's what we're gonna do..."

 

\- o -

 

            "Dude," Charlie says as they get into the Impala that afternoon. "The guy's gay. I'm telling you."

            "Charlie. Shut up."

            Charlie snorts. "What, so you're saying you _didn't_ notice the way he stared at you after I shared your little study aid?"

            "If you'd actually known the guy for more than a day, you'd know that stare's his default setting."

            " _Is_ it?" says Charlie, and she sounds more delighted than dissuaded, which makes Dean roll his eyes.

            "Look, do you need a ride or not?"

            "I do," Charlie says with a dramatic sigh. "I really do, Dean, I haven't had a decent ride in weeks."

            It takes Dean a minute to realize why she's smirking at him. "Seriously? You're gonna whine about your lack of sex to me?"

            "Two weeks, Dean," Charlie says. "Gilda and I have not had sex in _two weeks._ "

            "You wanna know long it's been since I got laid?" Dean retorts. "I've got zero sympathy for you, Miss Established Relationship."

            "Oh, whatever!" Charlie cries. "Baby Blues in there has already fucked you at least seven times in his head, I guarantee it."

            "Where the hell do you get seven from?"

            "It's the most magically powerful number, duh." Charlie rolls her eyes. "How long has it been since your last HP re-read?"

            "Uh, try never."

            "You're a heathen, Dean Winchester, and you're lucky I love you anyway," she informs him, throwing up a hand to wave regally at Ron in the security booth as the Impala pulls into the left ambulance bay lane.

            Dean grins at the gesture. "What is that, liver flap? Time for some hepatic panels, Charlie."

            Charlie rolls her eyes, pushing open the door. "Do you know how big a nerd you are right now? I can't wait till you finally graduate and start making jokes that are actually funny again."

            "What, like the one about the Corellian and the Rodian who walked into a cantina in digital redefinition?"

            " _Exactly_ ," she exclaims, shoving him in the leg as she climbs out of the car. She leans back through the open door to smack two fingertips to his hand where it's still around the gearshift. "Thanks for the riiiiide!" She does a weird hip-wiggle thing that has Dean bursting into laughter before she darts off across the ambulance bay, bag bouncing against her leg as she throws him a final wave.

            He grins as he shifts back into the drive and pulls out of the bay onto the road.

 

\- o -

 

            Cas is on his knees trying to unwedge his car keys from where Jo hid them under the bar when a towel snaps him in the ass. He jolts up, head cracking on the wooden bar. He's going to _kill_ Jo, and not nicely either, and then he'll be able to have her room when Ash finally comes back to Lawrence--

            When he jerks out from under the bar and turns to glare up at Jo, though, it's not Jo his blazing eyes land on. It's a guy about his age, dressed incongruously in a pair of threadbare jeans with holes that show the gray boxers he's got on underneath. He's got one of those USB drive necklaces looped around his neck with at least ten drives hanging from the metal ring.

            "Oh, shit," the guy says. "Sorry, man, I thought you were Christian. Your butts are, like, identical."

            Castiel pushes to his feet. His head is still throbbing, and he's still kind of pissed about that, but he's pretty sure this is the nephew/cousin/something-in-law whose room Ellen's been letting him stay in. "Ash?"

            "Duuuuude," Ash says, eyes widening. "You must be Cas."

            Castiel extends a hand. "Yes."

            "Dude, stoked to meet you!" Ash pulls Cas into a shoulder slap instead of shaking hands, squeezing him. "Heard you're Sammy Winchester's roommate!"

            "You heard correctly."

            "Heard you're some sort of sex god too."

            Castiel considers this. "As of yet there is no one here that could verify that statement."

            Ash starts laughing. "As of yet, he says! Cas-Man, I like your swag."

            Castiel tilts his head. Before he can open his mouth, Jo's jumping onto the stool on the other side of the counter and saying, "He doesn't know what swag is, Ash."

            "Oh, dude," Ash says. "This is what happens to people who room with Sam in college." He slings his arm around Cas's shoulder, leans into him as he grabs two Pabsts from under the counter and places one in front of Cas. "You've come to the right place, kid. I'm gonna school you in the ways of Badass."

            Castiel blinks at the hand dangling from his other shoulder. "Does this schooling come with housing? I was hoping to ask whether you would mind me continuing to share your room now that you are here. I would take the floor, of course."

            Jo bursts into laughter. Castiel squints at her, wondering if her amusement is at his request.

            "Dude," Ash says. "First rule of badassery: Beds are for pansies."

            Castiel looks at Jo. "What does he mean?"

            "It means he usually passes out on the pool table," Ellen says sourly as she passes them. "Go get a real shirt on, Ash, no one wants to see those jungles in your armpits."

            "You don't?" Ash asks mournfully, and it takes Castiel a moment to realize Ash is looking at him.

            "Er," he says.

            "You can stay in my room, Cas," Jo decides.

            "No," Ellen says. "Go clean off Table 4, Joanna Beth. Cas, we're not kicking you out of the house now that Ash's here. We'll bust out the air mattress tonight."

            "Or," says Ash. "Here's an idea. We could invest in another pool table."

            "Or," Ellen says, "you could go unpack your things so you can take the truck to go get some bags of ice from Winn-Dixie, the ice maker's decided to crap out."

            "What, Dean can't fix it?" Ash asks as he lets go of Castiel to head for the door.

            "You're crazy if you think I'm bothering that boy at ten o'clock on a school night," Ellen says. She glances at the cuckoo clock on the wall behind the bar. "With any luck he's in bed where he should be."

            "Dude, you go to school for a year, and when you come back everyone's a senior citizen," Ash grumbles to Castiel. "Who sleeps at ten o'clock? C'mon, you're on ice duty with me."

            Castiel follows him outside, untying his apron as he goes. "Is that a yes to the roommate agreement?"

            "Well, seeing as I've already done a background check on you and it came up clean, I guess so."

            Castiel gives a polite laugh at the joke until he realizes it isn't. A joke, that is. "You did a background check on me?"

            "What, you thought I was gonna let just anyone shack up with Ellen and my little cuz?" Ash winks. "Hell no, man! Congrats on the MCAT score, by the way. 43, that's pretty sweet."

            He cackles as Castiel stares at him. Then he skips toward a beaten-up red 4x4 in the corner of the parking lot and shouts, "C'mon, Cas, we're wasting moonlight!"

 

\- o -

 

            A few miles away, Dean is actually still awake at ten o'clock that night. He's pulling his phone across the table toward him for the third time in as many minutes and chewing on his lip when he thumbs the screen to life because there's still nothing from Sam.

            He sighs and dials Sam's number again, thinking without much expectation that maybe this time Sam'll pick up.

            Just as the first ring sounds, though, there's the sound of a key scratching in the door. Dean looks up from his spot on the couch, already pushing to his feet. "Dude!" he says as Sam comes in. "It's nearly ten!"

            Sam sighs. "Yeah. I'm sorry. We just--there's this indictment, and the defendants wanted a bunch of cases pulled--" He pushes a hand through his hair. "We decided to just order dinner and work through."

            Dean backs down a little. "C'mon, man. You couldn't have called?" He tries to make it sound joking. "I was starting to worry."

            "Dean. I'm just--I'm really tired." And Sam does look tired, his floppy hair all over the place like he's been running his hands through it all day. More than that, he looks discouraged, and that's a look Dean rarely sees on his little brother, who invariably wows everyone he meets. But he hasn't come home talking excitedly about this job the way he usually does his new endeavors, chatting ceaselessly about "innovative ideas" and "really making a difference, Dean!" "Chances are the judge isn't even going to let them submit half the stuff we dug up, and it's fucking discouraging, Dean."

            He looks close to tears, the way he had when he was Sammy, stomping his little foot and shouting to Dean that it wasn't fair, it wasn't _fair_ that they had to move again!

            "I know," Dean says softly. "I know, Sammy." Because he does, he remembers his first days working at the nursing home, feeling close to tears from just how tired he was, from the thought that he'd have to go in the next day and do it all over again; wipe up people's shit and spit and vomit, change their diapers and their sheets. "C'mon, sit down. I'll make you something."

            He sweeps his neuro notes off the sheet, shoves them onto the table and gets the sofa bed pulled out as Sam goes into the other room to change into pajamas.

            "Hey," he says as Sam folds his long self onto the creaking mattress. "You wanna take the bed tonight?"

            "No." Sam's already curled up, all fetal position the way he's slept since before Dean can remember, his head half under the blanket.

            Dean hesitates at the arm of the couch. "You wanna...talk about it?"

            Silence for a long moment. Then, "I just... Doing law. This isn't how I pictured it."

            Dean sits down on the edge of the arm. Rests his hand on Sam's shoulder blade over the blanket. "How'd you picture it, Sammy?"

            "A lot more ethical," Sam mumbles into the pillow. "I mean, I know that there's shades of gray and all, but--today we talked with this guy who may or may not have schizophrenia with religious delusions and basically told him that God told us He wanted him to plead guilty so he can take a deal because otherwise he's probably going to get the maximum sentence."

            Dean rubs slow circles on Sam's shoulder. He has no idea what to say.

            "I don't..." Sam shakes his head, turning over to look up at his brother. "Taking advantage of someone's head like that doesn't sit right with me, Dean."

            "Then..." Dean says slowly, "maybe this isn't the job for you."

            Sam's face gets stubborn. "I'm doing law, Dean."

            Dean raises his hands in an _okay, okay_ gesture. Sam sighs and closes his eyes. After a minute, he says, "Dean?"

            "Yeah?"

            "How's Cas doing?"

            "Cas?" Dean clears his throat. "Okay. Good." He scratches the back of his neck. "He's a weird dude, Sammy."

            "Says the guy whose best friend gives him Vulcan kisses when she says goodbye," Sam says dryly, his eyes still closed. "Judgmental much, Dean?"

            Dean huffs and gives Sam's hair a tug. "Shut it, Samantha."

            "Just be nice to him, okay?" Sam hesitates, like he's about to say more. Then he turns over, curling up under the blanket. "Night, Dean."

            "Night, Sasquatch." He turns off the lamp and eases the bedroom door shut behind him so the light from his desk lamp won't bother Sam. He taps his pen against his notes for a moment, then opens his laptop and checks his e-mail. Just in case...

            There's nothing yet. So he closes his laptop and immerses himself in coma scales and stroke symptoms until he falls asleep.

 

\- o -

 

            "So. The first thing you learn in physical diagnosis is how to take a patient history." Dean puts the blank sheet of paper between him and Cas, starts to scrawl down the items in the order he learned them. "You've got the Chief Complaint first, which is what you and Ruby get when you talk to the patients after you get their vitals. You want to put it in the patient's words, so if you've got someone coming in saying, 'Oh my God, I think I'm pregnant," that's what you write down. Well. Minus the "Oh my God,' part."

            It's another women's health day. But Missouri's 9:30 appointment cancelled, so Dean and Castiel are settled at the counter with a stack of progress notes while Missouri catches up on charting and Ruby plays Minesweeper on the computer Dean's not currently using.

            "Then you've got History of Present Illness, which, kind of self-explanatory, right? And then there's the Personal Medical History, which is where you put almost everything else," Dean says. "Their vaccinations, any surgeries or hospitalizations they have, what other diseases they have--you've seen how most of our patients have high blood pressure or diabetes?"

            "Or both," Castiel murmurs, and Dean makes a _yeah, unfortunately_ face. "What if their parents have a history of one of those things?"

            "That goes into the Family History." Dean moves down a space, writing _FH_. "And then after FH you've got Social History, which is the part where you get lied to the most often." He doodles a little picture of a pair of pants with flames around the legs.

            Castiel watches him draw. "Why do they lie?"

            "Because it's when you're asking if they smoke or drink or use illegal drugs. And if they do, how much. It's also the sex section where you have to ask about if they're having sex, if they're using protection, what kind--" He counts them off on his hand. "It's friggin' awkward, man."

            "It is not awkward," Missouri says warningly from her spot. "It's us trying to make sure the patient is at the least risk. Ruby, go ahead and slap that boy upside the head for me."

            "Hey! Workplace violence!" Dean says, and ducks the slap Ruby aims his way from behind. "You're supposed to screen for that, too," he informs Castiel, flicking a paper clip at Ruby.

            "And domestic violence," Missouri says. "I don't care if you're an NP or a doctor, you better not ever see a patient without asking them if they feel safe in their home."

            Castiel nods solemnly. "Is that it?"

            "After that you've got the review of systems, which is a long-ass list basically asking if they're having any aches and pains, does it hurt to go to the bathroom, stuff like that." Dean sits up as Walt leans around the doorway and slides an encounter sheet onto the counter.

            "Finally! An excuse to get away from Professor Dean." Ruby pounces on the sheet before Cas can take it and grabs the corresponding chart from the stack to head into the waiting room.

            "Is that Miss Ava?" Missouri calls after her.

            "Yes!" calls a young voice from the waiting room.

            "I hope you brought me some pictures of your wedding, little Mrs. Wilson!" Missouri pushes away from her computer to go talk to the brown-haired woman Ruby leads inside.

            Castiel watches, distracted from the paper Dean's writing on for a moment. "You're all so close to the patients here."

            Dean looks up. "Yeah," he says after a moment. "A lot of the people who are patients end up volunteering here to give back. So it's..." He shrugs. "Kind of like a family."

            Something in his voice makes Castiel turn around. "Are you a patient here as well?"

            Dean bobs his head in a nod. "Yup." He doesn't seem interested in elaborating, pushes over to the computer again to close out Ruby's Minesweeper game. "You wanna see how we e-prescribe?"

            Castiel hooks a chair closer with his foot and wheels it over to sit close beside Dean, paying more attention to the heat radiating from Dean's leg to his own than the sequence of steps Dean is narrating for his benefit.

            "How's Sam doing?" he asks after a moment.

            They're sitting so close together that Dean just glances at him from the corner of his eye. "He asked me the same thing about you last night."

            He doesn't miss the way Castiel stiffens. But Cas is fast, leans back in his chair and says, "He has seemed very tired in his texts to me."

            Dean shrugs. "He is. I think he's pretty frustrated with where he's working."

            "He's chosen a difficult field. Law is riddled with nepotism. It's difficult to work your way into a private firm without family connections." Castiel's eyes are stormy, his expression almost stern. "And I think that is what Sam prefers, compared to government positions like the one he is currently observing."

            For a moment it's on the tip of Dean's tongue to ask if Castiel knows any lawyers who would take Sam under their wing. He doesn't know much about the guy, just that he comes from a family of well-off doctors and he's kind of a spaz in what might be a savant sort of way, but if nothing else, it's clear that he cares about Sam.

            Weird how it's possible to feel jealous and resentful and grateful all at the same time.

            The moment passes, and he clears his throat. Taps the paper in front of them. "So if you were getting a PMH from me, what questions would you ask?"

           

\- o -

 

            Dean leaves the clinic after lunch to head over to KU. Once a month, all the NP students have to take a four-hour computerized exam that's supposed to help them for the national certification exam they'll be taking in December. It's kind of nice in one way because he gets to see his classmates for once--they don't generally see much of each other while they're on their rotations--but there's not enough time for him to do more than trade nervous smiles with Pam and Lenore as they all file into the computer lab where they take the test.

            He's not great at taking tests, never has been, and it doesn't help matters that he can't stop thinking about what Cas said, that Sam would be better off if he had family with connections. He knows it's not his fault that he and Sam are who, and what, they are, but the thought is a downward spiral anyway, _if I'd finished high school_ falling into _if Dad hadn't drank_ falling into _if I'd just stopped Dad from drinking_.

            Because in the end it always comes back to that, wondering what he could have done to be enough for Dad.

            "Sixty minutes remaining," Dr. Lee says quietly from the front of the room, and Dean shakes it off, focuses on his computer screen again.

            All his classmates have left by the time he finishes, which is nothing new; he's usually the last one to finish on tests, chewing his lip as he stares at the computer screen and checks and rechecks his answers. Dr. Lee eyes him sympathetically from the proctor's podium as she says, "Time's up, Dean," and he lets out a long breath, clicks **Submit**. His hand is sweaty when he wipes it down his scrub leg before picking up his attestation sheet to hand it in to Dr. Lee.

            She takes it but doesn't slip it into the folder with the others. Instead, she exits the program on the podium computer that lets her follow all the students' progress and scores throughout the rest. "Dean, do you have time for us to talk?"

            His stomach sinks. "Yeah, of course."

            She motions for him to sit down in one of the chairs at the long tables that span the room. Then she pulls out another to sit in herself, rather than staying behind the podium.

            "So," Dean says after a minute. "Guess I failed, huh."

            "By a very, _very_ small margin," Dr. Lee says. "But Dean, it only happened after you went back at the end and second-guessed yourself on so many of your original answers. I was watching your score throughout the test, and up until you did that, you had a more than adequate score."

            Dean grimaces at himself.

            "You're going to make an excellent practitioner, Dean," she says firmly, tapping the table next to his hand until he looks at her. "Your preceptors have all spoken very highly of your work. And once you're in practice, this test really doesn't matter, the on-your-feet thinking that you do will be much more important. But we have _got_ to get you past this test so you can get your license. Do you understand?"

            Dean nods. "Yes, ma'am."

            Dr. Lee smiles. "Good. We'll get you there, Dean, I have faith in you." She stands. "Now go nose-dive into a bed like the rest of your classmates."

 

\- o -

 

            Nose-diving into his bed is exactly what Dean plans on doing, but the night shift charge nurse calls just as he's turning his phone volume back up on the way to the Impala. She needs coverage till four a.m., is willing to give overtime on top of usual night shift differential. Dean drags a hand down his face and says yes.

            It's probably not his best idea, considering he stayed up till three a.m. last night cramming for today's test. But he's got a pair of scrubs in the trunk, and the coffee beans Bobby gave him that he never got around to giving to Sam, so he pops a few and changes quickly in the bathroom outside the ER break room.

            Gordon Walker's the PA on shift, which sucks, but Tessa's an awesome charge nurse in that she always takes care of the troublesome patients and providers herself when she can. So Dean's not too worried. Around midnight, though, Tessa gets paged for a STEMI and Dean gets to take on Gordon's patient in Room 4 who has an abscess the size of a tennis ball on her ring finger.

            Gordon catches him as he walks to the nurses' station to file the chart. "Hey, Winchester! Does it look like we're gonna need an I&D?"

            "On a scale of one to ten? Fifteen."

            Gordon snorts. "You mind prepping me a tray? I've gotta get a patient admitted upstairs."

            "Yeah, no prob." Dean heads to the supply cart on the intensive care side to get one of the surgical trays prepped for an incision and drainage, grabbing some lidocaine and a gown-mask pack with a face-shield for Gordon, because abscesses are basically big pockets of pus, and they tend to squirt.

            He leaves the tray in Room 4 after telling the patient and her husband someone will be in to see her in a few minutes, then heads off to check on his other patients. He gets distracted running to set up precautions for a TB case that turns out not to be, and doesn't think of the abscess again until two hours later, when Walker comes up behind him as he's trying not to yawn while he draws insulin for a patient, and says coolly, "You sure you're doing that right, Winchester?"

            Dean pauses, jaw snapping shut. "Uh."

            His patient, a middle-aged guy, looks as alarmed as Dean feels, suddenly freaked out that he messed something up because of how fucking close to falling asleep he is. He rechecks the label on the bottle, checking that yes, it's the right titration, it's well within its expiration date, and there's no bubbles in the syringe. "Yes?"

            Gordon doesn't say anything, just curls his lip at him and walks away. Dean wipes off the patient's arm with an alcohol wipe and gives the injection, but he's rattled. After documenting the insulin administration in the patient's chart,  he heads to the office behind the nurses' station where the physicians and mid-level providers write up their notes, rapping once on the doorjamb. "Hey, Gordon?"

            He's the only one in the room, sitting at a computer looking at a chest X-ray. He turns around when Dean comes in, and his eyes go--there's no other word for it--nasty.

            "Tell me something, Winchester." He reaches behind him and holds up a small clear bottle. "How many hospitals do you think want an NP who thinks you can use epi on someone's finger?"

            A flush sweeps across Dean. He _didn't_. Not after all the jokes they'd made yesterday.

            _Shit._

"Gordon. I'm so sorry. I'm a fucking idiot, man. Is she okay?"

            "Damn right you're a fucking idiot," Gordon says, and Dean doesn't let himself flinch. Doesn't.

            He does when Tessa's voice comes from behind him. "Excuse me?"

            Gordon looks past Dean to her.

            "Did I just hear you verbally abuse one of my nurses in the workplace?"

            Gordon's smile fades, the impassive expression left behind no less threatening. "I don't know. Is that what you heard?"

            "Yeah, it is." Tessa stares him down. "That's a coaching, Walker. I hear something like this again, and it's going down as a counseling on your record. Is that clear?"

            She doesn't wait for an answer, just strides to the nurses' station. Dean, uncertain, follows her and stands at the counter as she takes a disciplinary coaching form from the shelf on the wall and begins filling it out.

            After a minute, he musters up the balls to say, "Tessa. It's my fault. I messed up, gave him the wrong lidocaine for an I&D."

            Tessa doesn't stop writing. "That doesn't change the fact that I just witnessed some majorly inappropriate workplace behavior." She looks up and regards Dean for a moment. "How much sleep did you get last night?"

            Dean frowns and doesn't answer.

            Tessa presses her lips together. "Both of you messed up. Gordon shouldn't talk to anyone like that, much less someone on the health care team, and he should have double-checked the lidocaine before he used it." She stares straight at Dean. "And you shouldn't have made that mistake. But what I'm most upset about, Dean, is that you didn't just tell me you were too tired to come in when I called you."

            Shames curls at the base of Dean's neck.

            "We all get tired. There's nothing wrong with that. But if you come in tired, you can't provide the care people deserve. And there is something wrong with that." Tessa turns her attention to the form again, beginning to write. "Go home."

            It's only two-thirty. "Tess--"

  
            "I said go, Dean."

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**rating:** M

 **warnings:** Language.

****

**3.0**

_"Not in my experience."_

\-- "Lazarus Rising," 4.01

 

            "Dean!" Sam nearly pounces him when he lets himself into the apartment at three a.m. Dean blinks at him stupidly, eyes going to the stove clock because what the hell is Sam doing up? "Guess what Cas did!"

            Dean rubs his face, puts down his bag. He feels like shit. He wants to punch something. Or himself. "What, Sammy?"

            Sam's practically bouncing. "Dude! He got me in with some corporate lawyer in Nashville!"

            Dean gapes at him. Sam laughs at his expression. "Right?! It came out of left field!"

            "Where--who--how?"

            "I guess one of the doctors who works at the clinic?" Sam says. "I didn't recognize the name, but Cas worked with him yesterday and I guess they talked about me and the guy said his brother loves having students and he'd totally give me a paid internship!"

            Dean's blood runs cold. Because there were only two providers on shift at the clinic yesterday aside from Missouri, and one... "Which doctor was it?"

            "Some weird name. Ala-something?"

            Dean's stomach drops to his toes. "Sam, you can't."

            Sam's not listening to him, still talking in excitement. "He could probably help me get into Vanderbilt, it's like a top twenty school, Dean, and they have an MBA degree you can get at the same time, I looked it up--"

            " _Sam!_ " Dean's voice comes out a shout, startling them both. "I said no."

            Sam stares at him. "What?" Then, as it sinks in: "Why the hell not, Dean?"

            Dean's mouth tastes like acid. "'Cause--you just can't, Sam, okay?"

            Sam's eyes narrow under his freshly washed, fluffy hair. "Dean," he says slowly. "You seem to be under the misconception that you're the boss of me."

            Now Dean wants to sleep and throw up. "I--can we talk about this later?" he mumbles and pushes past Sam to his bedroom. "I just--no, Sam." He closes the door as Sam spins to start talking, and locks it. He can feel his heart thud hard in his chest and his tongue as Sam shouts, "Dean!" and slams the heel of his palm against the door.

            Dean's hands tremble as he undresses for a shower.

 

\- o -

 

            Dean's car isn't in its spot when Castiel gets to the clinic the next morning. Castiel waits in his car for a few minutes after parking, hoping to walk inside with Dean so that he can witness firsthand Dean's reaction to what he did for Sam yesterday, perhaps get for himself one of the grins Dean flashes that seem to make patients immediately feel more comfortable.

            But at 7:58, Dean's still not there, and Castiel heads inside to sign in.

            By 9:30, Dean's still hasn't appeared, and Castiel is saved from finding a casual way to ask where he is by Ruby going, "Meg! Where's Dean?"

            Meg turns from where she's leaning over Mrs. Tate at the front desk to show her how to cancel an appointment on the new scheduling program. "He called in sick."

            Mrs. Tate's gnarled hand comes up to her mouth. "Oh, it must be something serious. Dean never calls in." Her worried blue eyes find Castiel's behind Ruby. She cranes her neck as though to see if he is hiding Dean behind him. "What's wrong with him, Castiel?"

            Castiel shouldn't be surprised at having the question directed at him. Somehow, in the week or so Castiel's been working the at the clinic, the elderly female volunteers who make up the bulk of the clinic's front desk and medical record staff have gotten it into their heads that Castiel and Dean are dear friends. This may have something to do with the way they often eat lunch together in the break room now, or the way Castiel almost always works with the same provider as Dean, going with him into the rooms to listen whenever Dean will let him. Meg's humored him for the most part; even after local pre-med students started arriving a few days ago to spend their summers getting community service and shadowing hours at the clinic, she assigned them to providers other than Dean's. Or she sent them to help Bobby with the drug assistance program, which, if the conversations he's overheard in the break room are true, is a deadly boring job that consists mostly of calling prescription drug companies' assistance hotlines to ask them to provide free drugs for their patients in need.

            "I...I'm not sure, Mrs. Tate," he hears himself say. "I'm sorry."

            Mrs. Tate must make a few phone calls in between signing in the clinic's afternoon patients at the front desk, because by 3:30 that day, Jacqueline who works the front desk on Mondays has stopped by the clinic to drop off some sort of casserole she swears Dean loved at the last clinic Christmas party, and Maeve who works in Medical Records on Friday afternoons has dropped off two thermoses of her special chicken-rice soup. They come back into the clinical section where Castiel and two high-school volunteers are watching Ruby to learn how to draw insulin into a needle for an injection, and Castiel is given express directions to take both the casserole and soup from the break room refrigerator and take it to Dean as soon as he gets off work this afternoon.

            So once Castiel signs out at five o'clock, he carries the tendered food products out to his car. There, he makes the discovery that Maeve's sturdy thermoses don't fit in his cupholders, so he has to keep them braced between his thighs as he digs out his GPS and follows its directions to the address Meg wrote on the back of a Helping Hands business card.

           

\- o -

 

            "--don't want to have to owe him, Sam!"

            "It's not about _owing_ people, Dean! Sometimes people can just _do_ things for you, because they like you!"

            Their voices are audible even through the apartment's closed door as Cas comes up the breezeway stairs, juggling the clinic's Dean-offerings in his arms. He stops on the landing, flinches as there's the sound of someone's hands hitting something hard, like they've slammed their fists down on a table.

            There's nothing after that, and the silence does nothing to slow his thrumming pulse. He starts back up the stairs, two at a time, and gets to the doorway just in time to hear Dean's low voice saying, "--deserve it, Sammy, really you do. And if they can recognize you're worth it, then that's great. Really. But we can't afford it. You didn't apply for loans this summer, and I already maxed mine out for this semester. We can't afford the extra rent for you to go to Nashville for the summer."

            One of the precariously perched thermoses topples out of Cas's arms. It's the heavy metal kind, so there's no way the Winchesters, and probably most of their neighbors, don't hear it hitting the concrete and rolling down the breezeway.

            Castiel closes his eyes and exhales, bending to retrieve it even as the Winchesters' door flies open.

            Dean stares down at him.

            "Hello," Castiel says, and holds up his treasures. "Compliments of Jacqueline and Maeve." His eyes rove over Dean; he looks tired but not very sick, wearing the same denim and flannel combination he'd had on when Castiel first met him. "Are you actually ill, or was that an excuse for something?"

            Dean mutters something that sounds like _fuck you_ and shoves back into his apartment, leaving the door open. Castiel follows him in uncertainly, taking in the tiny kitchenette, the dark green couch and coffee table in front of a moderately sized TV, two matching stools at the raised counter separating the kitchen from the living room. A single doorway leads off the living space, a bed visible through the open door.

            Sam is leaning against the couch arm, shoulders hunched in as though to reduce the space he takes up. In this confined space, Castiel certainly doesn't blame him.

            "Cas," Sam says, and he sounds too uncertain for Castiel to think he is happy to see him.

            "Sam," he acknowledges. "I'm afraid I couldn't help but overhear your conversation."

            Dean snorts. Sam looks pained.

            "I believe I may have a solution."

            Dean snorts again. Sam looks pained and intrigued.

            "I still wish to spend the rest of the summer in Lawrence," Castiel says. "However, Ash is now here, and I do not feel comfortable imposing on Ellen's hospitality when she no longer has need of me. I would prefer to take the space Sam occupies while he is here and pay you rent."

            "That's perfect," Sam breathes as Dean says, "No."

            They exchange glances with each other, Sam's eyes wide with disbelief and Dean's eyes narrow with it. "Are you fucking serious, Sam?" he says at the same time Sam says, "Are you fucking me right now, Dean?"

            "You sleep on a fucking sofa bed, Sam," Dean says. "It's not exactly something people pay rent to do."

            Sam looks abashed at that, so Castiel jumps back in. "Please, Dean," he says. "I want to do this for Sam." Because he does. He wants to _do_ something for someone. If he were to acknowledge it to himself, it's guilt and transference, it's him trying to work through what he didn't sacrifice for Alfie, and should have. "My rent should cover Sam's expenses."

            "Dean," Sam says in a low voice, "I'm going. I'll borrow the money from Bobby if I have to--"

            "No," they both say at once, Dean viciously and Cas calmly.

            "--but I'm going and you can't stop me."

            Dean looks at him. Then he snatches up his bag from the couch, shoves a book into it, and slams out of the apartment.  
            He leaves behind silence. Sam stares at the door, and Castiel carefully looks at anything that isn't Sam.

            Finally Sam sighs. "Cas," he says, pushing a hand through his bangs and looking at Cas through them. "Thank you so much. Really. I can't even begin to..."

            He trails off, makes his most expressive face.

            "Don't thank me yet," Castiel says grimly. "That didn't seem to be agreement your brother was expressing just now."

            "No, it was." Sam shoves a hand into his pocket. "That's how he always gets when he realizes he's going to have to do something he really doesn't want to." Sam gives a half-hearted smile. "You should've seen him when he realized he was gonna have to let me drive his precious Impala to get my permit."

            Castiel attempts a half smile back. He should feel pleased, then, but there's a knot in his stomach.

            "Cas," Sam says softly. "Are you sure you're going to be okay?"

            Castiel raises an eyebrow. "Would I have made the offer if I wasn't?"

            Sam doesn't look away. "Yes."

            Castiel acknowledges this with a tilt of his head. Then he nods toward Sam's laptop sitting open on the coffee table. "Let's find you a place to stay."

 

\- o -

 

            Things work out for Sam as neatly as if they were pre-arranged. Zack, one of his debate club partners, is home for the summer with his family in Nashville and has been given the guest house since his older sister has moved on to grad school. He's stoked to have Sam come spend the summer in Nashville, promises to let him win at _Halo_ at least once a week, which makes Sam laugh as he and Castiel figure out how long it will take to drive from Lawrence to Tennessee.

            Castiel offers to make the drive, both out of consideration for the price of gas and because he's selfish and would like to have at least some time with Sam this summer. Sam accepts gratefully. Whether that means that Dean has refused to take him or that Sam simply doesn't want to ask him, Castiel doesn't know and doesn't ask. Any hopes he'd had of winning over the older Winchester brother appear to have been ruined by his efforts on Sam's behalf.

            Which Castiel tries not to let bother him...too much.

            He moves into the Winchester apartment on Sunday afternoon, after dropping Sam off in Nashville. "Move in" means he transfers the bag under his bed at Ellen's to his trunk and finds a spot for his BMW in the Winchesters' apartment parking lot between a dinged-up Celica and something with rims.           He doesn't dare park next to the Impala, or wouldn't, if it was there.

            It's not, so Cas has to let himself into the apartment with the set of keys Sam gave him before leaving. It's possibly the most awkward feeling in the world, letting himself into the empty apartment of someone who currently resents the air he breathes. He wishes he had asked Sam whether Dean wanted to be the one to drive him, for it occurs to him now, in the 20/20 vision of hindsight, that Dean might see Castiel driving Sam to Nashville as an additional theft on Castiel's part, when Dean could have spent a few last hours with Sam if he had been the one to drive him. Which could explain why he's pointedly not in the apartment when Castiel gets there. Or by seven o'clock, or ten, or twelve...

            ...or at all.

 

\- o -

 

            The Impala is already parked at the clinic when Castiel gets there the next morning. Meg places him with Bobby that morning, so he doesn't see Dean until ten-thirty, glimpsing him as he escorts a patient to Bobby's office. It's the first time Castiel's seen him anything less than clean-shaven; he has stubble dusting his jaw and his white coat is buttoned up as far as it goes in what is probably an attempt to hide the rumpled condition of the blue scrubs underneath it.

            "What'd you do, Winchester, sleep in your car?" Meg drawls as she passes by, raising an eyebrow at Dean's appearance. Dean ignores her and Castiel both, handing the patient his form to give to Bobby and striding back down the hallway.

            "What's up with the idjit?" Bobby says a few minutes later, after Castiel has filed Mr. Elkins' paperwork and made a new copy of his tax returns for their files. Apparently prescription drug companies are very strict about having proof of the poverty level of any patients to whom they provide free medication. Bobby has a whole wall of patient charts, separate from the ones in the medical records room, containing the income and tax information of every patient who participates in drug assistance programs. It would be impressive if it wasn't so boring. "Castiel."

            Castiel looks over. Bobby has swiveled around in his chair to look at Castiel head-on from under his cap. Castiel has rarely felt so disapproved-of in his entire life, at least by someone other than his mother. "I don't know, sir."

            "Why not?"

            Castiel's eyes narrow. "Why should I?"

            "Two-a you're roomin' together now, ain't ya?"

            Castiel begins feeding the copy of Elkins' tax return into the fax machine. "Apparently Dean doesn't spend much time at his apartment now that I am a cohabitant."

            It comes out more bitterly than he intended, and maybe that's why Bobby grunts and drops it, turning back to his computer. They work in silence the rest of the afternoon, and it works under Castiel's nerve like a sliver under a fingernail, uncomfortable and unignorable.

            He can't carry on like this. Feeling like he's antagonizing not just Dean but all the people here who like him, who view Castiel as the villain in this tableau. When the last patient leaves for the day and Bobby grunts a "Get on outta here, kid," he takes a deep breath and goes out to the parking lot to wait for Dean.

            He doesn't have to wait long. It's only been about fifteen minutes of leaning against his car's sun-heated black hood before the staff door pushes open again and Dean is stepping outside in his scrubs, bag over his shoulder, shoving a hand through his hair. He's staring down at his phone, but as he gets to the curb he looks up, and Castiel can tell the moment Dean spots him, because he stops dead on the edge of the curb. Even from this far away, Castiel can see the decision working across his face--go back into the clinic to avoid Castiel or just deal with him?--and after a moment his lips purse and he starts walking toward him.

            He stops a few steps away from both of their cars. "Thanks a lot for tattling on me to Bobby," he says flatly. "Kindergarten was so much fun the first time, it's great to relive it."

            Castiel eyes him for a moment. "Dean. You may not believe it, but I'm not here to complicate your life." At Dean's snort, he pushes away from his car, pulling out the envelope with the cash he'd withdrawn in Nashville after dropping off Sam. "If you don't feel comfortable with me staying at your apartment, I'll leave."

            Dean's eyes are on the envelope. They flick back up to Castiel's face. "What's that for?"

            "Sam only agreed to go to Nashville with the assurance that you would be receiving rent money." Castiel pushes the envelope toward him. "This is the rent money."

            Dean doesn't take his eyes from Castiel's. "I'm not taking your money if you're not staying in the apartment."

            "I'm not staying there if it means running you out of your home."

            Dean stares at him a moment longer. Then he takes the envelope. "Stay at the apartment," he says, and gets into the Impala.

            Castiel leans back against his hood as Dean pulls out of the parking lot.

            When he gets to the apartment fifteen minutes later, neither Dean nor the Impala are there. Nor do they arrive after another fifteen minutes, or half an hour.

            Before he leaves for the Roadhouse to escape the oppressive silence of the apartment, he sends a text to the number Sam gave him for Dean's cell: _I will be out until midnight. It would probably be best if you took advantage of my absence to take a shower._

            It's unkind, perhaps, but at this point he feels like Dean deserves it.

 

\- o -

 

            This pattern continues for the next few days. Castiel sees Dean at the clinic, does not see him at the apartment. After that first night, he himself is careful to avoid the apartment as well, staying at the Roadhouse with Ash and Jo until the wee hours of the morning, until Meg starts to make comments about him and Dean both looking so... _worn-out_ all the time, with her most insinuating dimple.

            The problem is that it's just too uncomfortable to be in someone else's apartment, watching someone else's TV, showering in their shower, when they're not present. It feels a bit like living with a ghost, and not just because his thoughts keep turning back to Alfie in the lonely silence. Sometimes he gets to the apartment in time for there still to be condensation on the mirror from the shower, the scent of Dean's off-brand shampoo filling the stall, or for the smell of recently reheated Chinese to waft from the microwave when he opens it.

            Awkward as it is, there's something stubborn inside him that defies simply leaving altogether and asking Ellen if he can stay with her, Jo, and Ash again. Dean Winchester is being an insufferable ass, even if only to Castiel, and like hell is Castiel going to be the one to slink away with his tail between his legs.

            But after his third night at the Roadhouse, Ellen shooes him off, saying his thunderstorm of a face is scaring off customers. It's just as well, since he's been neglecting his online class's homework (the face Ellen made when he'd asked why the Roadhouse didn't have wireless internet was priceless), so he drives to the coffee shop he'd seen that first morning in Lawrence, with its sign in the front window advertising free wi-fi.

            As he parks, he's trying to remember whether or not he missed the first online quiz, and that's probably the only reason he misses the big black car parked out in front of the coffee shop. Because as soon as he turns from accepting his espresso from the barista, his eyes land on a booth in the corner where an old laptop with a peeling _One Ring to Rule Them All_ sticker and dozens of papers cover the table.

            Dean's sitting there in the gray scrubs he wore to the clinic that day. He's intently watching something on the laptop screen as he rubs his temple with one hand and writes something in a notebook with the other. He's so focused on it that he doesn't even notice Castiel until Castiel's sliding into the other side of the booth.

            Even then, it takes him a moment between looking up and focusing on Castiel for recognition to filter into his green eyes. There's a split second between that and his face twisting into a glare for Castiel's pulse to skip a beat as those eyes fall on him, nearly glowing in the warm yellow lamplight that bathes the shop.

            Then the moment's gone, swept aside by Dean pausing his video lecture to say with narrowed eyes, "What're you doing here?"

            Castiel ignores his tone. "What are you studying?"  Dean had said that he was a student, but it hadn't occurred to Castiel that he still had lectures during his rotation, that he still had to study. He had supposed that Dean spent his nights away from the apartment doing something more pleasant than hunching over notes at a coffee shop, and now guilt is seeping back into him through the cracks broken into his anger by this discovery. He let himself judge too hastily again. Stupidly, too, for he should not have assumed Sam's own work ethic did not come from his older brother's example.

            Dean closes the notebook he'd been writing in. "None of your beeswax. You wanna go on and find your own table?"

            "Your cup is empty," Castiel observes. "I will get you a refill."

            He gets up to take Dean's cup to the counter, only for Dean to sit up abruptly. "Thanks but no thanks," he grits out, shoving his foot into the opposite side of the booth to bar Castiel from getting out.

            Castiel looks at that leg for a moment, the bit of Dean's lightly haired skin exposed by the hem of his gray scrubs and the top of his white socks and sneakers. He contemplates touching it, just tracing his fingers down the tan skin to the strong tendon curving into his ankle.

            Then he reaches out, and does.

            Dean jerks his leg back, so hard his knee slams into the bottom of the table with a sound that has the entire coffee shop glancing toward them. Castiel cannot look back; his eyes are on Dean's, on the green stare that is half alarmed and half something else.

            He has gone too far. He stands, his own skin hot with shame. "I apologize," he says quietly. "I will leave you to it."

            The muggy summer air, as he steps out into the parking lot, is cool against his flushed face.

 

\- o -

 

            He doesn't sleep much that night. He goes to the apartment and lies on the cheap carpet instead of the couch. Then he gets up and looks at the plain City of Lawrence calendar on the inside of the cabinet door in the kitchen. **SAM'S BIRTHDAY--19!** is scrawled on May 2 in the spiky handwriting Castiel has come to know so well from the progress notes and prescriptions Dean writes at the clinic.

            He leafs through the rest of it, noting Ellen's birthday and Jo's and Bobby's and various deadlines-- **SAM'S TUITION DUE** , **SAM'S RENT DUE** , etc., until finally, leafing all the way back to January, he finds in Sam's neat, precise script on the box for January 24: **Dean 23**!

            Castiel looks at it for a moment. Then he goes back to lie on the carpet, trying not to think about how Dean seems so much older than he is.

                       

\- o -

 

            Ruby frequently gets to work late, or has to leave early. Castiel puts it down to her being irresponsible, internally rolling his eyes at the smell of smoke wafting from her clothes and the way she often uses the work phone for personal calls. But one afternoon, when everyone else is occupied in an exam room, the phone rings. He answers the way Ruby taught him, feeling like a secretary. "You've reached the Helping Hands Clinic, this is Castiel."

            "Hello--is Ruby Cassidy there?"

            Castiel frowns. "Yes. But she is with a patient at the moment."

            "Can you ask her to call me when she gets out? It's Jenny Klein at Lawrence Elementary, I'm calling about Adam."

            Castiel writes the pertinent information and phone number on one of the cut-up pieces of scrap paper they use instead of Post-It Notes. When Ruby comes out of Room 1 a few minutes later, pushing a chart into the basket next to the door, he slides it toward her. "You received a call from a Ms. Klein at Lawrence Elementary."

            Ruby's face goes tense and worried. She takes the note without saying anything and goes immediately to the phone, not bothering to look at the note for the number.

            "Hey, Jenny?" she says after a moment. "What's wrong, is he sick again?"

            She listens for a moment, digs the heel of her hand into her forehead. "Crap," she says quietly. "Look, it's just--I can't pick him up today." Another pause, a voice on the other end. "Obviously I know that," she says snappishly. "But I can't miss any more work without them cutting my hours--"

            Dean comes out of another patient room at that moment. His eyes flick between Ruby's tense shoulders and Castiel, his brow creasing.

            "Look, can I just--let me talk to my supervisor. I'll call you back."

            Ruby hangs up the phone. Dean says immediately, "What's wrong?"

            "Adam's sick again," she says shortly. "Throwing up. But Meg said if I miss any more work, she's gotta tell the Health Department how many hours I've missed." Ruby and Missouri both work for the clinic through a contract with the county Health Department, which means their hours of work are monitored far more stringently than that of the volunteers.

            Castiel can see from Dean's face that he's getting ready to say that he can get Ruby's child. Why that makes him say, "I can pick him up," he has no idea.

            Ruby and Dean both look at him.

            Castiel adds awkwardly, "That is, providing Dean doesn't mind me taking him back to his apartment."

            Dean frowns at him. Then he shakes his head. "I don't mind."

            Ruby's staring him down. "Why?"

            "...because it's miserable to be ill at school?" Castiel knows firsthand. Naomi never had the best bedside manner when he was sick, doing little more than checking his mental status and hydration to ensure he wasn't becoming bacteremic. But before the divorce, Dad had always told the best stories when he or Alfie were sick in bed, smoothing back their hair and rubbing their backs. The first time he'd gotten sick at boarding school, after the divorce, lying in bed with no one to touch or sing to him, had been a cruel shock. No child should have to endure the same while there is someone available to prevent it.

            "You can trust him, Ruby." Dean's still studying Castiel as Missouri comes out of the third room. He transfers his gaze to Ruby, finally. "Besides, Jesse'll be there."

            Ruby eyes Castiel for one more moment, her eyes vulnerable with more uncertainty than Castiel necessarily feels comfortable with, preferring her sharp and caustic. Then she mutters, "Thanks," and picks up the phone to call the school to tell them she authorizes Castiel Novak-Shurley as an emergency pick-up for her children.

 

\- o -

             

            "If he's throwing up, he's just gonna have to get it out," Missouri tells Castiel before he leaves the clinic, and rattles off a list of things to pick up at the drugstore. So he buys Pedialyte, and ginger ale, a thermometer and some saltine crackers, and then a few tourist towels to cover his backseat with and a bucket for Adam to throw up in if he needs it. It's a sand pail, one of the bright red ones they stock at drugstores in the summer time even though Lawrence isn't even remotely close to any beaches, and at this point Castiel is despairing of anything ever not reminding him of Alfie, of the summer they were in Maine and he twisted his ankle stepping in the hole a six-year-old Castiel had dug in an attempt to reach Hell to find the Righteous Man.

            There's a drop-off lane winding in front of the school's front building. Castiel parks in front of the main building and pulls out his wallet as he walks up to the office door. There's a glittery hand-written sign taped to it that says, _6 more days of school! Remember to turn in your library books!_ and it flaps loudly against the door as Castiel pulls it open.

            "Hello--I'm here for Adam Milligan?"

            The woman behind the front desk eyes him shrewdly, pushing up from her desk. "ID?"

            He pulls his license out of his wallet and hands it to her. Jenny inspects it for a moment, says, "Date of birth?" as she compares it to the piece of paper that's got the information Ruby told her over the phone. She notes his license plate number in a sign-out binder and has him sign his name next to it. Then she leads him down a cramped hallway to an equally cramped room with the sound of crinkling exam table paper.

            Inside, there's not one little boy but two. A younger blonde one whose resemblance to Ruby is clear sits on the edge of the exam table, hunched over a bucket in his arms though he's not actively vomiting, just looks pale and miserable. Beside him, hand clenched in a fist on the exam table, a darker-haired boy stares at Castiel with a guarded hostility that actually reminds him of Dean.

            "Who is...?" he begins, looking at the secretary. She's looking at him with a thoroughly unimpressed look, her lip just this side of twisted. She speaks to the boys instead of him. "You boys sure you're okay going with this? You're not bothering anyone staying here until your mom gets off work."

            The older boy shakes his head. "C'mon, Adam." He helps the younger boy down off the tall table.

            "I'm Castiel," Castiel says, feeling very out of his depth. "I work with your mother at the clinic." He extends a hand to shake, which the older boy ignores. "This is Adam, but your mother didn't tell me about...?"

            "This is Jesse, Adam's older brother," Jenny says. "You feel better now, Adam, you hear? Don't want you missing your end of school party."

            "Yes, Miss Jenny," Adam mumbles into Jesse's side.

            "Can he keep the bucket?" Jesse says.

            "I have one in the car," Castiel begins, but Jenny's saying, "Long as you promise to bring it back," and ruffling Jesse's hair.

            Neither boy says anything as Castiel leads them to his car. Castiel's already wondering if Adam should actually be going to the hospital, he looks so flushed and unhappy. But Jesse doesn't seem worried, just stiff, as he climbs on top of the towels in the backseat and lets Adam lean against him.

            "Is there anywhere you'd like for us to stop on the way home?" Castiel says as he pulls out of the round-about, glancing in the rearview mirror. "Perhaps McDonald's?"

            "Does he look like chicken nuggets'll make him feel better?" Jesse says caustically.

            Castiel murmurs, "True," and says nothing else until he's pulling into Dean's apartment complex a few minutes later. Then Jesse says from the backseat, "You've got a BMW and you live _here_?"

            "I'm staying with my friend Dean at the moment," Castiel says.

            "Dean?"

            It's Adam's voice, small and breathless. Cas glances in the rearview mirror as he pulls into a parking space. "Yes, Dean. Do you know him?"

            "Mr. Dean's the best! He got me a Batman buckle for my birthday." As Cas gets out of the car and opens the back door for them, Adam nearly stumbles scrambling out to show Cas his belt buckle. "You wanna see it glow in the dark?"

            Cas puts a hand carefully to Adam's forehead, gauging his temperature. "Perhaps when we are inside you may show me."

            He reaches to take their backpacks, but Jesse shoulders them both as Adam grabs Castiel's hand and leans into his leg. He looks all too familiar with his brother cozying up to a stranger, a little frustrated and a little resigned. Castiel can empathize. Alfie--

            He stops himself. Clears his throat.

            They make it almost all the way up the stairs to the second floor before Adam has to retch again. It's not much more than a yellow-tinged clear liquid, but it's enough to make him cry. Castiel picks him up and carries him the rest of the way to Dean's door, digging out his key one-handed to let them in.

            Once inside, he sets Adam down on the couch and goes to pour a glass of ginger ale and stir it flat.

            "I'm--I'm sorry, Mr. Cas," Adam says miserably as he clutches the bucket, eyes watering. Jesse just watches Cas with expectant eyes, curved slightly around Adam like he expects to need to get between them.

            "Not at all, Adam. There is nothing to apologize for." Castiel brings a glass of water to the coffee table, hands it to Jesse, who takes it with a quick flick of his eyes up to Cas's before he brings it carefully up to Adam's mouth. "Can you think of anything that would make you feel better?"

            Adam hiccups as he swishes and spits back into the cup. "My throat burns."

            "What you just threw up was acid from your stomach. It's very sour and makes your throat burn. But when it comes up, it means your stomach is empty. So you should not have to throw up anymore." Castiel hopes he's not incorrect. "We'll wait a little bit to make sure, but after that we can try and see if you can have some crackers and ginger ale to feel better."

            Adam nods tiredly. But his eyes are tracking past Castiel around the apartment, taking in the TV and shelf of books and DVDs. "Can I watch _The Dark Knight_? Mr. Dean said someday he'd let me watch it."

            "Ah..." Castiel turns, scans the shelf until he sees a DVD spine emblazoned with the name Adam said. "Of course."

 

\- o -

 

            Adam falls asleep pretty early in the film, which is good since it's more violent than Castiel necessarily feels comfortable exposing other people's children to. From his spot on the floor, he glances over at the couch wondering if Jesse should be watching it either, but Jesse's eyeing him instead of the movie.

            "You're Mom's new boyfriend."

            Castiel blinks. "No."

            Jesse narrows his eyes. "Then why'd you come get us?"

            "Your mother could not leave work," Castiel says. "There was no one else, and I was available. It seemed...the right thing to do."

            Jesse doesn't say anything to this. Just keeps looking at Castiel. For the first time Castiel understands why people might be discomfited by his own habit of staring.

            He clears his throat and asks, "So you two know Dean?"

            Jesse shrugs. "He's picked us up a few times." A pause. "His car's a lot cooler than yours."

            Castiel smiles. "No air conditioning, though."

            Jesse snorts at this. Castiel catches his eye, and they both smirk.

            Castiel looks back at the screen, now showing a man in make-up holding a knife to someone's mouth. "Would your mother be all right with you watching this?"

            "If she wasn't, do you think I'd tell you?"

            "Does that mean you won't tell on me if she wasn't?"

            Jesse smirks again. Castiel lets the movie keep playing. By the time Dean and Ruby get to the apartment, they've moved on to what Jesse says is the next movie in the series, Castiel on his stomach on the floor and Jesse up on the couch by Adam, whose flush has receded somewhat under the wet washcloths Castiel has been putting to his forehead every twenty minutes.

            As he lets Ruby inside, Dean gives Castiel another of those strange searching looks that Castiel pretends not to notice, watching Ruby hurry to Adam instead.

            "Mama," he says, waking up as her arms come around him. He wraps his arms around her neck and legs around her waist and burrows into her.

            "Ooh, you're warm, kiddo," she murmurs into him, earrings catching in his hair.

            Dean comes up behind her and puts a hand to Adam's forehead. "Not as bad as he's been before. Let's get your temp, kid."

            "It was 99.7 half an hour ago," Castiel says.

            Dean gives him that searching look again. Ruby looks relieved, rubbing Adam's back. "That's not too bad."

            "My ears hurt," Adam whispers.

            "It's the smoke, Ruby," Dean says quietly.

            Ruby's mouth thins. But she doesn't say anything else, just looks over at Castiel. "Hey. Thanks."

            He nods. "Of course."

            Jesse glances back over his shoulder at Castiel as he grabs their backpacks and heads out the door after Ruby. He grabs his own bag and follows them, feeling Dean follow him.

            Jesse sort of hitches his shoulder as he gets into Ruby's backseat with Adam. "See ya, Cas."

            "See you, Jesse," he echoes back, raising a hand in farewell as Ruby's Celica creaks out of its spot and chugs away.

            It's still sunny, but dark clouds have moved in since Castiel went indoors with the boys. He squints against the moist wind and turns his keys over in his hands, looking over at Dean before heading toward his car. "Well. I'll see you tomorrow, I suppose."

            Dean puts his hands in his pockets. He's still wearing his white coat. "Cas."

            Castiel pauses in sliding on his sunglasses . "Yes."

            Dean's studying him from behind his own sunglasses, a cheap pair that sits lopsided on his nose. "Why're you here?"

            "Because Ruby could not get off work."

            Dean takes a step forward, hand settling on the trunk of Castiel's car. "That's not what I mean."

            There's no reason for Castiel's insides suddenly to go tight, for everything to feel like it's rushing to the surface as heat to his face, to his eyes. He shakes his head, inhaling. "I did not wish to be at my own home this summer, Dean."

            Dean's still watching him. "You gonna say why?"

            Castiel is silent for a moment. Then he says, "No. I am not."

            Dean's fingers curl on the black metal. "I'm not sure what you want, here, man."

            "I don't want anything." Castiel feels tired suddenly. He wants to go somewhere dark and just remember; wants to go somewhere loud and just forget. "Unless not wanting you to feel chased out of your own apartment counts."

            "We're not here for you to fix," Dean says. "You get that, right?"

            "If anything, Dean, I am the one looking for fixing."

            They stare each other down for a moment before Castiel's phone chimes loudly in his pocket. It's Jo, texting him that Christian called in and could Cas pretty please come help them at the Roadhouse, she'll make it worth his while in sexual favors.

            "She is actually 18, right?" Castiel says as he texts a reply, attempting to pull the atmosphere back into something that can't be cut by a knife. "I'm not going to get arrested for having these offers on my phone?"

            Dean looks like he's trying to hide a smile. "She's 18, but I can't make any promises about her not getting you arrested."

            Castiel sighs and unlocks his car door. Looks up one more time, meeting Dean's eyes over the roof of the car. He's aware that this conversation isn't really over but he isn't sure what more he can add to it, or should.

            In the end, he says nothing, just slides into his car and shuts the door.

            But when he gets back to the apartment late that night, Dean is in a stool at the counter, studying. He doesn't say anything, just nods toward the stove where half of a pepperoni pizza's sitting in a pan, and after Castiel has used the bathroom to brush his teeth and change into pajamas, he mumbles, "Night," and goes into the bedroom to sleep.

            Still, Castiel thinks, lowering himself onto the creaking soda bed as he hears Dean shift on his mattress in the next room, it's progress.

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**rating:** M

 **warnings:** Some ER action. Pretty tame.

 

**4.0**  

_"This is a rare opportunity."_

\-- "Free To Be You and Me," 5.03

 

            Living with Castiel is nothing like living with Sam. Cas is finished with his shower that next morning before Dean even stumbles out of the bedroom. His hair is damp as he folds his t-shirt and pajamas pants neatly next to the re-made couch, and he murmurs, "Good morning" when Dean blinks blearily at him. His quiet voice is all it takes for Dean to become acutely aware of the sticky patch of drool on the side of his face and the morning semi-hard-on under his flannel pants, and suddenly he feels trapped even though they're five feet apart.

            He's never had to worry about that with Sam.

            As he stands at the counter after his own shower, putting two sandwiches together for lunch because he's gotten used to making one for himself and one for Sam to take to the courthouse for his own lunch break, Castiel doesn't stand at the counter babbling about tariff laws the way Sam does. He just asks Dean quietly for permission before taking two slices of bread from the bag and placing them in the toaster. He keeps a careful distance from Dean the whole time, but somehow his presence still makes the kitchen feel more crowded than it ever does with Sam's Sasquatch self hovering around and elbowing past him to the fridge.

            He hovers like Sam as Dean locks the door behind them a few minutes later, watching him turn the key in the lock. But after that it's different again, because as Dean sets his man-tote down on top of the Impala's roof while he unlocks her, Cas goes with his sleek designer lunchbox to his own car instead of waiting next to the Impala's passenger door like Sam would.

            Dean hesitates, then calls, "What're you doing?"

            Cas pauses where he's bent to put his lunchbox in his passenger seat. He glances back at Dean and seems to take in what he's not, exactly, asking. "I don't wish to infringe upon your space any more than I already have."

            Dean twists his key ring on his finger. "I can suck it up if it means saving gas," he says, because seriously, the guy's already paying him rent for a freaking _sofa-bed_ , Dean could at least not make him spend extra on gas, too. Even if he is loaded.

            Castiel hesitates, studying Dean for another moment. "Very well," he says eventually and closes his car door, coming over to the Impala's passenger side. Dean slides into his own side to lean over and unlock the other door, stuffing his bag in the backseat.

            Cas doesn't have spider-long legs to stretch out on the dash. He keeps his knees close together instead, bag held primly in his lap, feet placed carefully not to touch Dean's murse, as Benny calls it, in the foot well. Dean makes an aborted movement to grab that, too, and shove it in the backseat, but it would entail reaching across Castiel's lap, so he stops himself and starts the car instead.

            They're awkwardly silent until the first red light they hit. Then Cas offers, "I admire your coat."

            For a minute, Dean thinks he's talking about his dad's old coat, the leather one that's hanging in the closet right now because it's May and it's already fucking hot. Then he realizes Cas means the white coat in the backseat. He grins sort of stupidly despite himself, because he's really fucking proud of that thing, even if he knows he had way less to do with him getting it than Bobby and Missouri and Ellen did. "Eh," he says, turning his face so Cas can't see his dumb expression, " 's okay. Bitch to keep clean, though."

            "I have a similar problem with one of my favorite winter coats," Cas says seriously, brow furrowed. "My br--" He stops then, and Dean glances over at him, but Castiel is looking out the window now, as studiously as Dean had before, his jaw tight.  

            Dean knows how to tell when people don't wanna talk about something. God knows he sees enough of it in the ER and at the clinic. He lets silence settle between them for a moment before saying. "How many winter coats does a guy need in a place like Cali?"

            Castiel shifts in his seat. "My family is from New York. One can never have too many coats there in winter time."

            "I bet," Dean says. "How the hell'd you end up in California?"

            Castiel glances at him. "You are interrogating me."

            "Not an interrogation," Dean says. "Just a social history."

            Castiel smiles a bit despite himself. Turns his head to hide it, but Dean sees the reflection in the window anyway. "Very well. I deny using tobacco or drugs, indulge in alcohol only socially, and I have no pets or recent travel history outside the United States." He pauses for a moment, teetering as though debating whether to continue.

            "You don't have to go on," Dean says.

            Cas cocks an eyebrow. "Are you sure? Sexual history is quite important."

            Dean can still remember the feel of Cas's fingertips grazing up his ankle at the coffee shop. He's, like, fifty percent sure he's being flirted with.

            "My vaccinations are up to date," Cas says suddenly. "I had my appendix out when I was fourteen. No surgeries, other than that. I had chickenpox when I was two, mono when I was older." He glances over. "What about you?"

            "Me? Nothing much. Chickenpox when I was little, I guess."

            Cas nods and looks back out the window, apparently content with letting that be enough conversation for the morning. That works for Dean. Just because the guy was pretty cool with Jesse and Adam doesn't mean Dean's over the Alastair thing. It's not like Castiel knew what he was agreeing to, exactly, or that Dean has been dodging Alastair's offer for weeks now because he doesn't want Sam within two hundred feet of Alastair or anyone Alastair knows.

            He chews on his lip and wonders if Sammy's already at work.

           

\- o -

 

            Fred's wife sent him with a huge pan of cinnamon rolls to put in the break room for the volunteers that morning. Castiel studies them as Dean tosses his lunchbox onto one of the tables and goes, as he always does during his lunch break, to glance out the window to make sure his car's still there. He dials Sam's number at the same time, fidgeting as he glances between his car and Castiel, who's now sitting down with his own lunchbox at the chair across from Dean's. He's half sure Sam won't answer, isn't sure when his break is, but Sam picks up on the third ring.

            "Dean!"

            His chest unclenches in a quick rush. Sam sounds excited. "What's up, Sammy?"

            "Dean. It's so awesome already!" There's noise in the background, like he's standing on a busy road, but there's music playing in the background, so maybe he's at a restaurant. "This morning I sat in on a mediation!"

            Dean blinks, glancing at Cas, who's not even bothering to pretend he's not paying attention, watching Dean as he unwraps his sandwich. "That's good, right?"

            "It's awesome," Sam says firmly, and sounds so much more like the Sam Dean knows that he grins.

            "Well, good, Sammy." He hesitates. "How's, you know--that Azazel guy?"

            "Oh, I'm not even working for him anymore. I guess he already has an intern this summer, so one of the other partners swooped in during their morning meeting and said it wasn't fair Azazel got two." He laughs. "You should've seen him, man, the guy looked kind of pissed."

            "Wait--so you're not working for the guy Alastair knows?"

            "Nope." Sam's using the _Keep up, Dean_ tone that means he's probably rolling his eyes.

            "Then who's the new guy?"

            "Gabriel Milton. He's hilarious, Dean, he's like some specialist in corporate law and he's got a giant gumball machine in his office, and get this." He lowers his voice. "He's going to pay me even _more_ than Azazel."

            Cas is doing something with his cell phone, frowning. Dean watches him without really looking. Relief is flooding through him, but he doesn't trust it. "Are you sure that's okay, Sam? They're not, like--"

            "What, trying to take advantage of me?" Sam laughs. "I'm not a girl, Dean, you don't have to protect my virtue--oh, wait, there's our cab. I gotta go, Dean, I'll talk to you later!"

            He hangs up before Dean can say anything else. Dean slides his phone into his pocket slowly.

            "I thought that name sounded familiar." Cas taps something on his phone and holds it out to Dean. There's a promotional picture on it of a short guy with hazelish eyes and grown-out hair kind of like Sam's. "This is Gabriel Milton. He was my father's divorce attorney."

            Dean gives Cas an incredulous look, tilts the phone closer to him to see. Not that you can really tell that much about someone from just their appearance, but this guy looks fairly non-threatening, if a bit of a comedian if the little smirk right at the corner of his mouth is any indication. He lets go of Cas's phone, feeling the knot in his stomach loosen a little.

            "He seemed all right," Cas says, as though he's reading Dean's mind. "Flippant, but kind. I don't think he stayed in family law very long."

            Dean nods. Then looks over at Cas. "Your parents are divorced?"

            "Yes. You didn't know?"

            Dean shrugs. "Sam didn't really tell me much."

            "No." Castiel neatly folds his napkin. "He didn't tell me much about you either."

            "'s not his fault," Dean says a little gruffly. He feels magnanimous all of a sudden. _Sam's not with Alastair's buddy._ "We just sort of got used to being...private, growing up."

            Castiel's blue eyes are intent. He seems to be waiting for Dean to say more, but when Dean doesn't, he doesn't push. Just gets up to pull two cinnamon rolls out of the pan and slides one of them to Dean on a napkin.

            Dean fidgets with the edge of the napkin. "We have a patient coming in this afternoon Missouri wants me to get an EKG on. You wanna come in while I do it?"

            Cas gives him a dry look like _do you really need to ask?_ and Dean finds himself grinning.

 

\- o -

 

            His phone buzzes just as he's sliding into the Impala that afternoon, wincing at the friggin' hot leather hitting his ass through his scrubs. Cas is still standing outside the passenger door on the other side, letting some of the hot air billow out before he gets in the same way Sam always does.

            Dean flips his phone open. Rolls his eyes when he sees the text. "Get in, I gotta take Benny his badge."

            Castiel makes a displeased face but gets in gingerly, strapping his seatbelt using just his fingertips. "He left it?"

            "Yeah. Somewhere in here, apparently." Dean twists in his seat to rummage in the backseat foot well under the pile of old practice board exams he'd dumped there. Pulls himself back up again a moment later, holding Benny's hospital badge. "Got it." He clips it to the sun visor, then glances at Cas. "You wanna come with or you want me to drop you back off at--" He catches himself before he says _home_ , "drop you off first?"

             "You don't have to do that. I'll come with you." Cas's eyes flick to the back seat, and Dean tries not to think about what Charlie said, or the way Cas's hair is extra messy from where he ran his hand through it while he was waiting for the Impala to air out.

 

\- o -

 

            Technically, parking in the ambulance bay isn't allowed, but they're only going to be there like five minutes, so Dean parks at the very end of the empty second lane, right in front of the portable that serves as the peds section of the ER. He throws Ron a wave as he leads Cas past the security booth to the ER's ambulance entrance,  swiping his own badge through the card reader next to the electronic doors.

            Haley from EMS is pushing an empty gurney down the hallway as they stride inside. She grins when she sees Dean. "Well, check it out! What's with the coat, Winchester?"

            "Shit, I forgot." Dean shrugs his white coat off hurriedly, stuffing it under his arm. "Hey, d'you know, is Benny in CC or IC today?"

            "Think I saw him on CC side." Haley jerks a thumb over her shoulder and wheels past them back out into the ambulance bay, shouting a greeting to Ron as the doors close behind her.

            "This way." Dean glances back to make sure Cas is following, sees that he's looking around. Not in as fascinated way like a lot of the students he's seen shadowing doctors, more an assessing one, like he's familiar with the way hospitals work and is measuring this one against his standards. Which makes sense, since Sam said he came from some sort of big medical family. "Do we make the cut?"

            Castiel's eyes flick back to his, then around again. "It's smaller than I'm used to."

            "Well, Lawrence isn't as big as New York, I guess. C'mon, this way."

            The nurses' station for the critical care side is just around the corner from the intermediate care one where the less severe patients like broken bones or minor lacerations go. Benny's leaning against the counter in his usual white scrubs when they round that corner, plucking med orders from the printer as they emerge. He grins when he sees Dean.

            "Don't you smile at me." Dean pulls Benny's badge out of his pocket. "How'd this thing end up in my backseat anyway?"

            Benny flashes that all-teeth smile again, which Dean's pretty sure is actually for Castiel's benefit. "How indeed," he drawls, taking the badge from Dean and attaching it to his chest pocket. "Who's this, Winchester? Introduce us."

            "Sam's roommate Castiel," Dean says as carelessly as he can. "The one shadowing here this summer. Benny here used to work the cardiology floor," he says to Cas. "Bet he'd let you pick his brain if you asked nicely."

            Cas is eyeing Benny speculatively, though his eyes flick toward Dean kind of startled when he mentions cardiology, and Dean remembers that Castiel never actually told _him_ about the cardiology aspirations, only Becky. Now he knows Dean's been paying a little more attention to Cas than Dean is quite comfortable with him being aware of. He clears his throat, looks back at Benny, but that's not any better because Benny's looking at him all speculative and shrewd.

            "I would appreciate that," Cas says in his totally-unexpectedly-gravelly voice. Benny's eyebrows go up a little at it, and it's enough to make Dean relax a little, just in internal laughter at Benny's reaction.

            Then someone down the hall's shouting, "I've got a perforated megacolon in 2!"

            Benny grabs the phone to page surgery, and one of Benny's nurses darts to Room 2. She and a doctor wheel the patient out of the room a moment later, striding briskly toward the OR. From this angle, Dean can't see the patient around the doctor's back, and he's leaning back around Cas in an attempt to get a better angle when Benny flicks him in the ear.

            "You don't gotta look so excited, brother."

            "It's not my fault the interesting cases always happens on your shifts," Dean retorts.

            "More like the messy cases," Benny says. "Get outta here before somebody asks you to cover for 'em, you got a test your ass needs to be studying for."

            "Yeah, _Mom_." Dean ducks the flick Benny aims at him and glances back at Cas. "You wanna see anything else before we go?"

            "Anything you can show me would be appreciated," Castiel replies. "It was nice meeting you, Benny."

            Benny nods an acknowledgement; he's got OR on the phone and is telling them to prep for a perforated toxic megacolon.

            Castiel waits until they're out of Benny's earshot, walking down the same hallway the compartment syndrome patient was wheeled, to ask Dean, "What's a toxic megacolon?"

            Dean glances at him, looking vaguely surprised. "Uh--pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Large intestine balloons up when it gets infected, and if it gets _too_ big--" He blows out his cheeks to mime a balloon bursting. "So then you've got shi--uh, stool inside the abdominal cavity, which is really bad news."

            Castiel is wearing an expression that's a cross between--there's no other way to put it--a _eureka_ face and an O face. Except it's Castiel, so he's added a squint for good measure. "Is _that_ what FOS means?"

            Dean chokes on a laugh. He forgot Cas walked in on that particular conversation. "I guess, sort of. In the more literal, life-threatening sense."

            "Full of shit," Castiel muses. "Charlie's acquaintance wrote that in an official chart?"

            "That was the joke," Dean explains. "It's just sort of, like, lingo--it's not an actual technical abbreviation. But the guy Charlie was talking about accidentally wrote it in on an X-ray report." He shakes his head. "Poor son of a bitch. Anyway. Here we are." He holds the ER waiting room door open for Castiel as he steps through, looking around.

            The waiting room's maybe half full, filled with the sound of coughing and people talking angrily or tearfully on their cell phones, as usual. One of the new nurses, Lucy, is sitting at the triage desk. She's a nice enough kid but kind of green, only about a month off her general orientation. "Hey, Luce, you on your own today?"

            She glances up from the patient paperwork she's leafing through. There's a smudge of pen ink on the side of her nose; her eyes are wide in that _holy shit what am I doing_ expression he's worn on triage shifts more than enough times himself. "Yeah." Her eyes flick past him to Castiel, then back. "What, are you working today?"

            "Nope, just wanted to show this guy our triage." He glances back at Cas, who's watching an older-looking man in the corner holding a bloodied-looking tissue to his nose.

            The man is turned away so only one side of his face is visible, but the eye Dean can see is blackened like he got into a fight, and as the man pulls the tissue away from his nose, Dean sees the red spots of blood are surrounded by clear rings of fluid.

            Dean walks closer to him under pretense of studying a shelf of brochures on the wall, looking at him from the corner of his eye. Then he walks back to the triage desk.

            "Hey, Lucy?" he says lowly. "Does that guy in the corner look like he could be a skull fracture?"

            Lucy glances up, her eyes following his to the man. Her face drains of color. "Oh, crap," she mumbles. "Um--can you go tell Benny I'm gonna be back there in just a sec?" She quickly unfolds a wheelchair from behind the desk and hurries it toward the man, stooping to speak to him quietly. The man looks kind of out of it, holds his head carefully as he lowers himself into the wheelchair.

            "Hold the door for her, Cas?" Dean says and doesn't wait for an answer as he grabs the phone at Lucy's desk to tell Benny she's bringing back a head trauma patient.

 

\- o -

 

            "How did you know?" Cas asks as they walk back out to the car. It's already starting to get dark; had they really been inside that long? "That he had a skull fracture?"

            "The blood on the Kleenex he was holding?" Dean practically scrambles into the car, feeling jumpy with energy. This is what he loves; not those stupid tests on a computer but people he can touch, bleeding and breathing and _real_. "It had clear spots around it---halo signs. That's what they call it when someone's got CSF fluid coming from their nose or their ears."

            "CSF is cerebrospinal fluid, yes?"

            Dean grins at Castiel, shoulder-bumping him as he accelerates out of the parking lot. "Kid, what're you even bothering going to med school for? You already know everything."

            "Clearly not," Castiel says dryly. But his eyes are sharp and bright with something Dean hasn't seen before; he's staring ahead, instead of at Dean, as if he's trying to fix everything into his mind. Dean remembers the feeling, remembers sitting in on his first incision and drainage and trying to burn it all into his brain, wanting _more, more, more_. Remembers the hospital being, for the first time, a place he wanted more of rather than a place he wanted to escape.

            Cas turns abruptly in his seat. "The Accucheck they did as they were putting him in the room. What was that for? He denied having diabetes."

            "You saw how the guy was out of it, right? Any time someone comes in with AMS, altered mental status, you've gotta check their glucose in case they've just got a low blood sugar." Dean's talking fast, getting animated. "Dude, I remember this one time..."

 

\- o -

 

            By the time they get to the apartment, he's moved on to telling Cas about the first DKA episode he ever saw in the ER. They move around each other in the kitchen, putting together turkey sandwiches and some of Sam's leftover veggie straws for dinner as Dean talks. It's like some sort of dam has been broken; he's jabbering and Cas is doing his best sponge impression, sitting down on the couch with his plate as he listens to Dean, blue eyes intent. He pushes his back against the arm of it as Dean leans against the counter across from the stove, still talking as he washes his hands and slathers extra mayo onto his sandwich. He's still going when his phone buzzes with a text, Lenore reminding him to memorize the Cockroft-Gault formula, and, "Oh, shit! I forgot!"

            Cas swallows his last veggie straw. "What?"

            Dean rolls his eyes at himself, shoving his phone in his pocket. "I have a test tomorrow."

            Cas straightens contritely against the couch arm. "I apologize. I distracted you."

            "No, dude, it's my bad. Uh..." Dean goes to the bookshelf in the corner and tugs his step-by-step EKG book out of it to toss at Cas. "The one I was telling you about before. In case you still wanna read it."

            "Thank you," Castiel says, opening the book but looking at Dean.

            "Yeah, no problem." Dean clears his throat. "I'm just gonna go, you know--change--"

            The easy, excited confidence of the night is giving way to that awkwardness again as he remembers anew the fact that he and Cas are sort of living together now. Um. He escapes into his bedroom and closes the door, absolutely _not_ feeling weird about stripping off his scrubs and jumping into the shower with his brother's roommate in the next room. It's just Cas's intent attention that's doing this to him; he's not used to having someone listen to him so closely, to someone thinking he's knowledgeable. Patients don't count, because when it comes down to it they know Missouri's really the one in charge, checking up on all their lab results and treatment plans. But Cas is listening to _him_ , has asked to follow _Dean_ , and the attention does stupid things to his insides.

            That's all it is.

            When he comes back into the living room a few minutes later in his sweat pants and t-shirt, carrying his notes and laptop, Cas is still on the couch, leafing through the book. He looks intrigued rather than intimidated, which is simultaneously aggravating and attractive since Dean's personal memory of his own first encounter with the book is _Holy fucking shit, how the fuck did I think I could do this?_

            He clears his throat and gestures vaguely at the rickety coffee table with its chipped coffee mug full of pens and chewed-cap highlighters. "You mind if I...?"

            "No," Cas says quickly. "No, please--" He scoots over, pulling his legs up onto the cushion to bring them out of Dean's way. "Would you--should I leave?"

            "Dude," Dean says, and his voice is still a little awkward, but he thinks he manages gracious pretty well, " _Mi casa es su casa_ and all that. Okay?"

            Cas murmurs an affirmative and pretends to read for a moment longer, as Dean settles down on the floor in front of the other side of the couch with his laptop and notes spread on the coffee table. Then he slides off the couch to his bag of clothes and goes to the bathroom to change into his own pair of pajama pants and shirt. When he returns to the living room, he sits at the counter, settling in with the EKG book and a highlighter Dean tosses him when he asks.

            It's the nicest night he's passed in some time.

           

\- o -

 

            Ellen comes in Thursday afternoon to get refill prescriptions for her migraine medications. Castiel's looking up a chart number on the spare computer on Dr. O'Brien's side and only peripherally registers Ruby going into the waiting room to call the next patient inside. Then he hears a familiar voice saying loudly, "Ruby, I want my blood pressure checked by that handsome boy with the bed head."

            "That would be me," comes Dean's voice, and Castiel grins, pushes away from the computer.

            "Uh-uh," says Ellen when she sees him. "I'm talking about this kid." She gets a hand on Castiel's head and shakes him gently. "Look at you, all scrubbed up. Let him try your jacket on, Dean, let's see how he looks."

            Dean squawks at this from his swivel chair, holding his white coat protectively around him. "No way! You gotta earn the coat, Ellen!"

            Ellen snorts and lets go of Castiel's head only to give Dean's the same treatment. Unlike Cas, he tries to duck away from her hand, which earns him a flick to the side of his ear. Castiel understands where Dean picked up the gesture, now. "So help me, Dean Winchester, don't make me kiss you on the forehead."

            "Aren't you supposed to be finding out how much weight you gained, or something?" Dean complains. He pushes his chair backward to where Ruby's standing, smirking.

            "You keep an eye on him, Ruby," Ellen says, and picks her purse back up from the counter to follow Castiel to the scale.

            "Where's Jo?" he asks as he balances it back to zero. "Hiding in your purse? Or perhaps she's under the exam table already."

            "I wouldn't be surprised," Ellen replies. She raises her voice. "She wanted to know if she could come shadow Missouri."

            "Oh, hell no!" comes Dean's voice, horrified, and Ellen trades a smirk with Castiel.

            "I hadn't realized she was interested in health care," Cas says as they move to the chair to get Ellen's pulse and blood pressure.

            Ellen snorts. "She's not. That was a joke. Though it wouldn't hurt her to get some community service hours." She looks at him. "What about you? You haven't been coming to see us much lately."

            Castiel isn't sure if there actually is something sly in her expression or if he's imagining it, paranoid. "My apologies," he says carefully.

            "Cas, honey, I don't want an apology." She's still smiling. "I was just making an observation."

            "I see." Cas is silent for a moment. "Then allow me to observe that you are wearing very nice earrings today."

            Ellen laughs. "That's my kind of bedside manner." She holds out her arm so he can wrap the blood pressure cuff around it. Her eyes are kind inside their crow's feet. "It looks like you're doing real good here, Cas."

            Cas smiles as he presses the button to start the machine.

 

\- o -

 

            Because Ellen's right. He is doing good at the clinic. He _feels_ good.

            But for all the nights he drops onto the sofa bed and falls asleep thinking of Dean's mouth, or eyes, or some piece of pathophysiology he taught Castiel that day, there's as many that he lies awake staring at the dark ceiling because Alfie's only been gone a month and it feels like longer. But at the same time like he's not dead at all, like Castiel could pick up the phone and hear his voice at any moment. And the thing that keeps running through Castiel's mind, lying heavy and dark along his bones, is that he spoke so little with Alfie these past few years that it feels _normal_ not to have spoken to him for this long.

            It feels like nothing's changed.

            Nights like that, he thinks he should leave. Go back to Syracuse, or Stanford. Slave himself to Uncle Zachariah and apply to Columbia's medical school, walk the halls and classrooms and anatomy labs that Alfie did because Castiel was too selfish to accommodate his mother's expectations and Alfie was left behind to fill them himself.

            Mornings after nights like that, he's quiet. He goes to Bobby's office as soon as they sign in, and Bobby lets him get on the phone, lets him submerge himself in the mindless repetition of punching patient identification numbers and dosages into the phone keypad for the recorded medication refill hotlines. On those days he doesn't have to try to smile, or talk, and it feels like being in his car again, in the dark night and silence, feeling Alfie's ghost all around him.

 

\- o -

 

            Dean fiddles with his phone as he sits at the table in the hospital cafeteria waiting for seven o'clock to come so he can call Sam. He's never had this experience before, the roommate experience, where he and Sam arrange their phone schedules so that Dean isn't on the phone at ass o'clock in the morning while Cas is trying to sleep. He realizes now that might be part of why Sam's phone calls didn't come as frequently as he would have liked when Sam went off to Stanford; he probably didn't want to disturb Cas, and it feels weird, to have their roles reversed like this.

            He doesn't think Cas would mind hearing him talking to Sam, and half of Dean wouldn't mind it, either, actually kind of wants to turn on the speaker phone so he and Sam and Cas can all talk together. But the larger part of him still wants, greedily, to keep these conversations Sam to himself, especially because he knows Cas and Sam still text each other on and off throughout the day. The strangest part, though, is the tiny piece of him that wants to keep Cas from Sam. That worries, if they all spoke together on the phone, Sam would steal Cas's attention from Dean, rather than the other way around.

            He turns his phone over in his hand again. Most of his anxiety about where Sam is, who he's working with, has settled back into its usual background simmer. Sam's started bitching about Gabriel now ("He never takes anything seriously, Dean!"), which always makes Dean more comfortable than idolization, which Sam tends toward a little more often than Dean'd like. When Sam idolizes a person is when he does stupid stuff for them, so the clearer and more objective a head he's got about this hotshot Milton guy, the more comfortable Dean'll be, even if Cas did vouch for him.

            At any rate, Bobby's said he's got a friend up in Nashville who'll check in on Sam if Dean wants him to. Dean remembers Caleb a little, enough to remember that he didn't like Dean's dad very much, that he'd been at his funeral and muttered to Bobby that it couldn't'a happened to a more deserving son of a bitch, but it sure was a shame about his boys. Dean had overheard, doesn't know what expression had been on his face, just that when Caleb had looked up and seen Dean looking at him, he'd flushed dark and said, "I'm sorry, boy, but your daddy, he wasn't no piece 'a pie."

            Dead remembers choking out a laugh, wet and horrible sounding, but a laugh nonetheless because God help him it was true. He might've let his knees buckle right there and then if Ellen hadn't been there with her hand on the scruff of his neck, holding him up.

            "How's Samuel doing, Dean?"  
            Dean's head snaps up. Dr. Alastair's lowering himself into the chair across from him, digging a spoon into a cup of Mississippi Mud Pie from the dessert counter. He raises an eyebrow expectantly at Dean as he licks the pudding from the back of the spoon.

            Dean's lips compress. He doesn't _have_ to say anything. Just because Alastair's a physician at the hospital doesn't make him Dean's boss.

            But the problem is--the problem's always been--that Alastair hasn't actually _done_ anything. He's just made Dean feel like he's planning to. Or would, at the slightest slip-up. The way his eyes follow Dean, the way he always calls for Dean specifically when he wants assistance with a patient, the way he touches Dean's shoulder when he's speaking to a patient--these things aren't enough for Dean to go to HR. But they're enough to make him uncomfortable, enough to make him sweat, to dread walking through the hall when he sees Alastair's name on the On Duty board. Enough for the hairs on the back of his neck to rise up at the thought of Sam having anything to do with Alastair, or anyone he knows. He doesn't want Alastair even to know Sam's name, doesn't want the two of them ever to have anything to do with each other in his head. 

            "He's fine," he says finally.

            Alastair raises another eyebrow around the spoon in his mouth. He has his legs splayed, eyes heavy-lidded as he watches Dean, pulling off the spoon with a pop. He licks his lips in that slow deliberate way he has. "It brings me joy to hear it."

            Dean pushes away from the table. "Thanks. Anyway--my break's over. See you."

            A long finger hooks under his shirt sleeve as he goes to walk away. Dean yanks immediately free, spinning to face Alastair. The physician has a mockingly innocent _why, Dean, I think you're overreacting_ face elevating his brows. Dean doesn't let himself take a step backward.

            "If there's anything else I can do..." Alastair's smiling, "do let me know, Dean."

 

\- o -

 

            In retrospect, Castiel probably should have warned Dean about his Saturday plans. To be fair, he'd planned to be on the road by the time Dean woke up, especially since Dean had exulted joyously to Missouri yesterday about his plans to sleep until at least noon. He just hadn't counted on the sofa bed making such a horrendous screech as he pushed it back into sofa configuration.

            He freezes at the sound, eyes flying to Dean's mostly shut bedroom door. Through it, he sees just the top of Dean's hair under his blue comforter as he mumbles something and rolls over.

            Castiel gives up on pushing the sofa bed the rest of the way in and decides to leave it as is. His phone and wallet are still under it, though, so he crouches to dig them out and stuff them in his jean pockets, double-checking to make sure he's got the proper credit cards in his wallet.

            A sound behind him has him freezing again. He turns to see Dean in his t-shirt and pajama pants in the bedroom doorway, rubbing an eye with the heel of his palm. He squints blearily at the stove clock, which says 4:52 a.m., and then at Cas. "What're you doing?"

            Cas stands. "I apologize for waking you."

            Dean's eyes light on Cas's keys in his hand. His hand falls from his face. "Where're you going?"

            "I'm taking a day trip."

            Dean frowns. He's completely awake now, eyes alert. "What kind of trip?"

            "A fairly long one. I may not be back tonight. I'll text you to let you know if not."

            "Whoah." Dean's fully awake now. "What're you doing that's overnight? There some girlfriend you're not telling me about?"

            "No, nothing like that."

            Dean raises an eyebrow. "Then what is it?"

            Castiel raises one back as he pushes his wallet into his pocket. "Nosy much?"

            Dean's expression flickers; already he's turning away. "Whatever," he mutters, but Castiel senses a tint of hurt to his tone, in the jut of his shoulder blades under his thin white t-shirt, and without knowing it, he's saying, "Dean."

            Dean doesn't turn, just says belligerently, "What," as he busies himself turning on the coffee maker.

            "I'm going to get money."

            Dean does look up now, brow cocked. "And that's an overnight trip why?"

            "I'm using an account connected to my mother's," Castiel says with ill grace. "I would...prefer she not be able to trace me. Hence traveling to a distant location in order to withdraw the money."

            Dean studies him for a minute. Castiel waits for the scorn, the "rich college boy needs to sneak money from his mommy?" crack. But after a moment, Dean just shrugs a shoulder. "Lemme get dressed."

           

\- o -

 

            It's still strange to see Dean in anything that isn't scrubs or sweat pants. There's something younger and softer about him in jeans and a t-shirt so worn that whatever was screen-printed across the front is impossible to discern now. The fact that he didn't bother to gel or even brush his hair before they left doesn't help matters. Castiel's never considered himself the tackling type, but that's what he wants to do to Dean as he slides into the passenger seat of the BMW, wrinkling his nose at the jazz music Cas has on and shoving his bag between his feet in the foot well.

            "Dude," Dean says. "This is gonna put me right back to sleep."

            "That would be good, wouldn't?" Castiel doesn't reverse out of the parking space yet. He's still not sure why Dean is here with him in the car before it's even light out instead of back in his bed. "You were going to sleep in today."

            Dean shrugs one shoulder. "Not really. We have an exam next week I was gonna study for." He heaves the bag between his feet back into his lap and tugs out a textbook covered with a brown paper cover that looks like it might have been a grocery bag once. "You mind stopping at a drive-through on the way? I'm starving."

            Despite his words, Dean doesn't open his book, even after they've both polished off the croissant sandwiches from the Burger King just before the interstate. (Castiel can practically feel his cell phone shuddering in his pocket from the displeasure Naomi would unleash on him for eating such a thing, especially since he followed Dean's advice to get extra bacon added, but it was well worth it; he wonders whether he can lick his fingers without Dean noticing.) Instead, he cranks his seat back a little and watches out the windshield as the sky turns gray and then orange. After that, the weight of his eyes settle on Castiel, who pretends not to notice, pushing on his sunglasses as they drive into the rising sun.

            "So," Dean says after a while. "You actually have a destination in mind, or are we just going until you run out of gas?"

            That reminds Castiel. He pulls the GPS out of the glove compartment and extends it to Dean. "Please program in New Harmony, Indiana."

            "Dude." Dean looks like Cas just handed him a stool sample. "A _GPS_?"

            Cas casts him a _yes, so?_ glance

            Dean snorts. "Ever heard of a _map_?"

            "Yes. In fact, they're accessible on that device."

            Dean glowers at the sarcasm, then opens the glove box himself, riffling through it. The only maps inside it are for New York and California, though, and when he discovers this, Dean groans and flops back in his seat. "Fine," he mutters, and spends a few minutes trying to figure out how to turn the GPS on, which Cas enjoys immensely because it's like payback for that first day with Rufus Turner when he couldn't get the BP machine to work and Dean just laughed through his misery.

            After a minute, though, Cas takes pity on him and reaches over to press the button on the back of the GPS. He ignores the dirty look Dean shoots him as the device chimes to life, saying, " _Hello, Castiel._ " It pronounces the name as atrociously as it ever does, making Dean snicker. Castiel flips him the finger and pulls the Post-It Note with the bank address written on it out of his pocket to hand to Dean.

            Dean programs it in, then taps the piece of paper against his mouth thoughtfully and says, "What's in New Harmony?"

            Castiel says nothing. Dean snorts. "Fine, be that way. I was just asking 'cause it sounds familiar."

            Castiel's eyes snap to him. Stupid of him, perhaps, to underestimate the popularity of his father's books, but it hadn't once occurred to him that Dean might have read them.

            Perhaps he hasn't, though. Dean lives in Kansas; it's likely he may have heard the town named on the local news, or in the paper.

            Dean notices his gaze. "What?" he asks as he pulls a textbook out of his bag.

            Castiel returns his eyes to the road ahead of them. "Read out loud." Belatedly, he adds, "Please."

            Dean snorts again, rolling a sideways glance Castiel's way. "Jeez, you really are like Sam."

            "I would prefer not to be compared to your brother," slips out before Castiel thinks twice about it, and there's a moment in which the sentiment hangs between them, awkward and suggestive. Castiel's knuckles tighten on the steering wheel, and he makes himself look straight ahead at the SUV pulling in front of them.

            Dean clears his throat. "Ninety percent of strokes take place in the middle cerebral artery, with contralateral upper extremity symptoms predominating..."

           

\- o -

 

            It's just after eleven when they pull off I-64, just in time to reach a bank before its noon closing time. Dean cracks his back as he gets out, shakes out his legs as he follows Cas to the double doors.

            "Do we need to check you for a DVT?" Castiel asks in amusement.

            "Dude, I'm not going to teach you things if you just use them on me."

            "It's not my fault you're an effective teacher," Castiel retorts, and if he was Sam, Dean'd give him a noogie, but it's a different sort of warm feeling he gets in his gut when Cas looks at him with his dancing blue eyes and says something like that. It doesn't help that his voice is hoarse as hell from all that reading in the car, and he wonders if it makes Cas think of what it makes Dean think of, then decides those aren't the thoughts he should be having with another six-hour car ride with the guy still looming ahead of him.

            Inside the bank, he waits in the little sitting area with the stiff couches as Castiel goes straight up to one of the tellers. He's starting to get hungry again, checks his watch, wonders what Sam's doing.

            **you up?**

            His phone buzzes a moment later. **i'm up. y r *u* up?**

            It's a dig at his Saturday morning tradition of sleeping in. Dean debates whether to share the whole on-a-road-trip-with-your-roommate thing, but it's not as big a deal as telling Sam about it would make it _seem_ , so he just types a **ha ha, bitch** instead and turns with his hands in his pockets as Castiel comes toward him, slipping his wallet into the back pocket of his jeans.

            "Lotta people get sciatica that way, you know," he remarks, gesturing at Cas's bulging back pocket as they fall into step toward the doors

            The grin flitting across Cas's face has him groaning because he knows where this is going. "There you go being concerned about my ass again."

            "Yeah, yeah." Dean rubs at the back of his neck and changes the subject. "You know what sciatica is?"

            Castiel lets the matter drop, though a smirk still lingers at the corners of his mouth. He does know, but he lets Dean explain, watching with soft amusement as Dean starts to talk faster the way Cas has found he starts to do when he's off-balance. "This muscle under your glutes presses on the sciatic nerve, so you end up getting pain up and--oh."

            Castiel lifts an eyebrow as they walk out of the bank's double doors.

            "New Harmony," Dean says. "I just remembered where I heard it before."

            Castiel's amusement drains away. "Oh?"

            "Yeah." Dean shrugs, doesn't seem interested in elaborating. Cas isn't sure whether he's relieved or disappointed. "Dude, I'm starving. Were you planning anything else here or can we go get some grub?"

            Castiel unlocks the BMW's doors. Dean slides in, saying something about killing for a milkshake, and Castiel presses his palm against the car's roof, searches the cloudless blue sky that stretches above the shopping plaza.

            He's not sure what he was expecting to find here. But realization is seeping into him, like the heat from the black metal against his palm, that whatever it was, it's not here. Chances are that his father hasn't never even been here, that he chose New Harmony from a map or a Google search for his character to die in.

            It's a strange feeling, standing in a town his father wrote about but has never walked in, never been to.

            It's...lonely.

            "Hey, Dreamweaver!" Dean thumps on the car roof, leaning across to peer up at Cas through the driver's side door. "Still starving down here."

            Cas blinks down at him. Then he pulls his hand from the car's roof, sliding into the driver's seat. "I'm starting to realize that's a constant state of being for you."

            "Hardy har har," Dean says. He points across the street, at shopping plaza with a Target and a bunch of restaurants. "Food. Drive."

 

\- o -

 

            They find a Five Guys, where Dean demolishes all of his fries and a good deal of Castiel's. His moaning and groaning afterward about how he's going to barf all the way back to Lawrence reminds Castiel of the time his father took him and Alfie out of school to go to a cheap fair, where Alfie threw up after eating too many hamburgers, just spewed all over the House of Mirrors. For some reason, he finds himself telling Dean about it. By the end of the story, Dean's in stitches, shaking as he clutches his stomach.

            "That poor kid," he wheezes. "That poor fucking kid. Sam--God, when Sam was in, like, fifth grade or something, his class put on this Romeo and Juliet play and he was Mercutio, right? But he got sick right before the performance, the flu was going around, but he was so damn set on being in this play, he went on stage even though he looked like shit. And I'm sitting in the audience, right, and the minute he comes up for his first line, I see his face, and I know. I _know_. He opens his mouth to say his line, and _whoosh_! Barf everywhere. It even splashed off the stage, Cas. It was incredible."

            Dean's laughing hard again, gasping around every other word, and Castiel finds himself shaking with mirth as well, laughing at the thought of a dismayed Sam projectile-vomiting onto a crowd of parents.

            "They had to stop the play right in the middle to mop it all up, and I hustled Sam outta there, but after that, all the kids called him Merpukio." Dean's still grinning so widely it seems his face might crack in two. "That was like the only time Sam didn't pitch a bitch-fit about us moving in the middle of the school year, he was so relieved to leave that nickname behind."

            The long drive back to Lawrence becomes an exchange of embarrassing stories, most centered on their brothers, some not. Castiel notices how Dean's gaze goes intent and hungry whenever Castiel tells stories about Sam at Stanford, like the time Sam came back to the dorm with a hole burned through the seat of his pants from leaning against a counter in chemistry that had sulfuric acid spilled on it, or the time Sam took the wrong bus to the grocery store and ended up stranded on Sorority Row, needing Castiel to come pick him up.

            He's starting to understand that hunger.

 

\- o -

 

            That night, sitting on the sofa-bed long after Dean's closed the door to his bedroom, he slips his laptop out of its bag. It feels strangely threatening in his lap, its weight like a warning. He's turned it on since he left Syracuse, of course, has used it for his online class with its lectures about riboflavin and pellagra and Vitamin B6. But not once has he opened Word or any of his writing files; not once has he typed anything more than a quick e-mail to his professor.

            It feels like he will be breaking something once he does; he is afraid it will be like opening the door to a garden he's left too long untended, and all manner of overgrown and nesting, frightening things will pour out and bury him. He doesn't realize he's held his breath until he lets it out in a frustrated breath as he types, _Dear Alfie_ and deletes it, types, _Alfie, I_ and deletes that, too.

            "When in doubt," Monsieur Balthazar had always said, " _in_ _medias in res_ , my dear idiots. You can never go wrong with action. Although foreplay is always in better taste."

            _Alfie. Today,_ _I went to New Harmony._

            _The last time I read_ No Rest for the Wicked _, we were in your room. It was Christmas Eve, remember, Mother sent Inias looking for us to bring us downstairs to the party because Uncle Zachariah had brought us those horrible puppets with the human hair. And then Mother yelled at me when we finally came downstairs because you were still crying from how the book ended._

_You wanted to call Dad to ask how he could let that happen to Abel. I told you not to put up a fuss about it, but you didn't understand, then, that talking about Dad made Mother sad. And angry._

_I never told you. When they were getting divorced... That's the book Dad was working on. They were arguing one night, you remember how we used to sit outside his study door listening to them? Mother wanted him to sign the papers, and Dad kept saying no. I could hear him typing. I don't know if he was truly typing anything, or if he was only pretending to in the hope that Mother would leave._ Even now Castiel's stomach roils with the memory of it, the anxiety, the fear, as if anything worse than what had already been happening was coming. Things had been over then, already; he had just been too young to understand it. _She grabbed the papers from his printer and read them aloud. She was so angry, Alfie. The sarcasm in her voice... I don't know if she's ever used it on you. That blade she could get in her words sometimes, do you know it? When she makes you feel so small, so stupid. She did that to the last scene, to the part when Abel's telling Cain to keep fighting and remember what Abel taught him, and I've never been able to think of it without thinking of Mother's voice. How she made the words so petty and small. How she could take something that wasn't hers and ruin it so completely...turn it into something it wasn't._

            His fingers pick up speed on the keys. _But today--today when I was talking to Dean about you. That time at the fair, do you remember? When you ate too much and threw up, and I told him it was hamburgers because that's what I remembered, but tonight..._ Tonight he remembered Alfie singing the Wiener Hut jingle in the car on the way to the fair, remembered how dead set Alfie was on having his birthday party at Wiener Hut that year. _What if I remembered it wrong?_ What if his memory of that day and his memory of Dad's book and that stupid angel became conflated, because that was what Dad did, he took things about his children and he wrote stories about them, wrote them _into_ his stories and twisted them until Castiel couldn't remember what had really happened and what was fiction, anymore--if Alfie had always been afraid of clowns or if it was only after they read the book, if he had thrown up hamburgers or if that had only been the angel with Famine.

            It wasn't right. It wasn't right and it wasn't fair, but at least before Castiel had always had Alfie to help him remember what had really happened, what was the books and what was real.

            Now...

            Now he doesn't.

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**rating:** M

 **warnings:** Spoilers up to 8x23. And bed-sharing, gasp.

 **note:** _So much_ dialogue in this chapter. I apologize.

 **disclaimer** : Opinions espoused here are not necessarily those of the author.

 

****

**5.0**

_"I told you who I really was. That was a big first for me."_

\-- "Route 666," 1.13

 

            When Castiel and Dean walk into the break room the next morning to sign in, Jesse and Adam are sitting at one of the tables. Adam's got a coloring book in front of him and is leaning across the table to peer at the battered Game Boy Jesse's playing, but when they come in, he leaps to the ground.

            "Mr. Dean!" he shouts, grabbing a plastic yellow box off the table and running up to Dean. He stops just in front of him, rocking back on his sneakers and grinning up at him.

            "Hey, kiddo!" Dean crouches in front of him. "You come to help me out today?"

            "Yeah!" Adam crouches down, too, to set the yellow box on the floor and unlatch it. Inside is a Fisher Price doctor kit that looks like it's seen better days: The fake plastic stethoscope Adam pulls out still has a 25 cents sticker on the side, and the diaphragm looks like a small dog's been chewing on it. "Want me to listen to your heart?"

            "Uh, _yeah_ ," Dean says, as if there's nothing he'd like better in the whole world. He rocks back on his heels as Adam pushes the stethoscope into his ears. To Castiel's surprise, the kindergartener goes straight for the aortic, pulmonic, tricuspid and mitral valve sites Dean had shown Castiel only a few days before. He frowns in concentration at each as though he can actually hear Dean's heart with the plastic toy.

            When he's done, he pulls the stethoscope out of his ears. "Everything sounds good, Mr. Dean," he says, so solemn that Cas nearly smiles. "But I think you need to do more exercise."

            "Oh, yeah?" Dean's on his feet in an instant, grabbing Adam under the arms and swinging him up. "How's this for exercise?" he says in a mock indignant voice as he pretends to bench-press Adam, who shrieks with laughter.

            "Not so loud," Jesse hisses as Meg clicks into the room. She purses her lips at Dean and Adam, then at Jesse. Castiel moves into her line of sight, meeting her eyes until she rolls them and clicks over to the coffee maker, pouring herself a cup and heading into her office.

            Castiel looks back at Jesse. "Are you and your brother spending the day here?"

            Jesse has his bottom lip under his teeth; he's scooted to the edge of his seat like he might need to jump out of it. "Just me," he mutters. He's wearing a white hoodie despite the time of year, one of the white clinic volunteer vests over it, its starched whiteness drawing the fadedness of his hoodie into sharp relief.

            He doesn't volunteer any more information, and Dean is coming over with Adam now, Adam chattering something about his class party for the last day of school. Castiel touches his fingertips to the tabletop, lightly. "I look forward to working with you, then."

            "--and Jesse made a balloon sword for me!" Adam's saying as Cas walks past them to head for Bobby's office, since he requested Cas's help in the morning today. Adam pauses in his talking long enough to grin and say, "Hi, Mr. Cas!" with a wave of his hand.

            "Good morning, Adam," Castiel returns. Above Adam's head, Dean mouths, _See you later_.

 

\- o -

 

            Castiel catches glimpses of both Jesse and Adam throughout the morning. Jesse is put to work as a patient escort, walking them from the screening offices to the clinical waiting areas once their paperwork's done, and Adam's adopted by Krissy and Aidan, two of the summer high school volunteers who spend most of their time bickering at the front desk while their far more diligent classmate Josephine shadows the pharmacist in the clinic's tiny in-house pharmacy. Jesse glares at Aidan a lot, as Aidan shows Adam how to make a cootie catcher and Krissy tells Adam he's way cooler than Aidan, which makes Adam beam and Aidan whine.

             Castiel's standing at the front desk rescheduling an appointment for Mr. Elkins because his Plavix from the hospital is going to run out sooner than they thought when a man in a denim jacket and sunglasses comes through the clinic doors, carrying a strong smell of smoke with him.

            "I'm just here for my kid," he tells Mrs. Tate, leaning through the receptionist window. Then he spots Adam and Krissy sorting magazines in the corner and barks, "Adam!"

            Adam jumps up. "Yeah, Daddy," he says fast, and hurries around the front desk without looking back at Krissy or Jesse, who's coming out of one of the screening offices.

            "Adam, your kit--" Castiel begins, recalling the yellow box Dean had brought to Bobby's office to keep safely stowed away while Adam played with Krissy. But Adam's father is already pushing back out through the clinic door, Adam running to keep up. Castiel looks at Jesse to ask whether he should take Adam's kit to him, but Jesse's turning away from the clinic door, taking an encounter sheet from the intake tray and glaring at it as he shoulders past Aidan into the waiting area.

 

\- o -

 

            "Dean," he begins when they're in the Impala that afternoon, driving home. "Adam's father--"

            "Don't."

            Castiel looks over in surprise. Dean's looking straight ahead, his eyes inscrutable behind his sunglasses. "What?"

            "Don't," Dean repeats. "I told you, Cas, we're not here for you to fix. Some things are better if you don't rock the boat."

            "But Ruby--"

            "Has enough shit to deal with without you shoving your nose into it."

            Cas stares at him. He can't not remember how affectionate, lively Adam went wide-eyed and silent when his dad called his name, how he scurried after him like a mouse. And he can't believe that Dean is being so dismissive of that fact. "Dean."

            "Cas." Dean's voice isn't angry, just warning. "Don't. Adam's dad doesn't hit him, and sometimes that's all you get, okay? DCF doesn't take people's kids away just because they're assholes."

            Castiel purses his lips, looking out the window. Eventually they turn into the apartment complex, and Dean parks in a space next to Cas's Beemer. He pauses, with his hand on the keys, then turns them, killing the ignition.

            "You missed out today, working with Bobby," he says after a moment, voice casually light. "Missouri had a patient with pulmonary hypertension."

            "Adam admires you," Castiel says. His voice isn't casual at all. "Idolizes you. You owe him more than--"

            "Adam latches onto anyone who can act like they give a damn about him," Dean says, and there is a anger in his voice now. "And you know what, maybe when you're the one he's cozying up to, it's cute, but when you're his big brother? You spend every fucking second being scared the next person he shoves his heart at is gonna do something bad with it."

            Castiel stares at Dean. Through the blood pounding in his ears, he recognizes, somehow, that this may be far more about Sam than it is about Adam, or Jesse.

            May be far more about _Dean_ than about Sam or Adam or Jesse.

            Dean seems to realize it, too. His eyes skitter from Castiel's, and he shoves his door open, gets out so quickly he might as well be scrambling.

            "Dean," Castiel says, getting out as well. "Dean, wait!" When Dean doesn't stop, grabbing his bag and lunchbox out of the backseat, he grabs for him, seizing his sleeve.

            For a moment, they both stare at it, Castiel's hand on Dean's sleeve. Then Castiel lets go and Dean tucks his arm close to his side. He looks guarded, an animal trapped. Castiel wishes he could see his eyes behind his sunglasses, see past the dark cumulonimbus clouds reflected in the lenses.

            "Perhaps," Cas says. He falters, clears his throat. "Perhaps I have given my own feelings too much free rein."

            Dean is quiet. The stormy lenses stay fixed on Castiel.

            "I never...took as good of care of my brother as I should." It's a confession and a reason and an excuse, and this is the moment to say it, to say, _and now he's gone_. But his voice keeps going, steamrolling past it, over it, and Castiel is strangely, deeply relieved. "We spent a great deal of time living with our grandparents when our parents were getting divorced," he says instead. "My brother and I. Our grandfather disliked our father, and his disdain extended to us, and I... What I mean to say is that I'm familiar with the feeling. Of seeing your brother desperate for an adult's affection and fearing what he will do to get it." And more slowly, because this is the worst part, the most selfish part. "Of...resenting him for wanting it and resenting the people he seeks it from for withholding it and...resenting the people who do give it because you should have been enough for him."

            Silence falls between them again. Castiel is the one looking away now, aware of Dean's eyes on him, aware of how much more he revealed than what he intended, or wished, and as he looks at his shoes, tiny dark dots of raindrops begin to appear on the cracked asphalt.

            Dean's white nursing shoes scuff toward him, then away. There's the sound of one of the Impala's doors groaning open and then closing.

            Castiel's lunchbox enters his field of vision. "Here."

            Castiel takes it. He looks up. Dean is looking back. He jerks his head toward the apartment building when Castiel's eyes meet his. They start across the parking lot, breaking into a run when the drizzle becomes a downpour.

            "Family kind of fucks you up, don't they," Dean says as they begin to climb the stairs, hair and clothes dripping.

            Castiel smiles humorlessly. "'Kind of' may be an understatement."

            Dean snorts. And lets their shoulder bump together when he unlocks the door for them to go inside.

 

\- o -

           

            A few nights later, when _Dr. Sexy_ 's just finished, Dean twists around where he's sitting at the coffee table to look up at Castiel. "Cas."

            Cas looks up from the EKG book to peer down at him. "Dean."

            "Are you making another bank run this weekend?"

            The answer is no,  but Castiel's intrigued. "Why, would you like to come?"

            Dean shrugs, turning back to face the TV. "I just figured if you did you might want a co-pilot." His voice is studiously careless.

            "Did you have a destination in mind?"

            "Maybe." Dean tilts his head back to look up at Cas. It feels unbearably intimate, the ends of his short hair mere millimeters from Castiel's knee. Suddenly Castiel _wants_. "It just has to be far away?"

            Castiel makes himself look at Dean's eyes instead of elsewhere. "Three or four hours minimum."

            Dean makes a humming noise of affirmation and finally tilts his head forward again. "Okay. We're taking my car this time, though."

            "All right."

            "It doesn't have air conditioning."

            "That's fine."

            "I get to pick the music."

            "Very well."

            "All the music."

            "Dean." The fondness in his voice surprises even Castiel. Dean seems just as surprised, for his head falls backward again to peer up at Castiel. Except this time, his hair slides along the back of Castiel's hand  where he's rested it on his knee, and Cas isn't sure who the sharp inhalation comes from, just that he wants to turn his hand over to sift it into that soft hair and hold Dean's head still so he can bend to kiss him. He'll cup his other hand under Dean's chin and slide their lips gently across each other, tilt his head until he can feel those eyelashes against his skin--

            Dean blinks, and the spell's broken. He shoves to his feet, not meeting Castiel's eyes, and says something about seeing him in the morning.

            Castiel stays where he is, book held carefully over his lap. The bedroom door closes behind him, and he waits until he hears the sound of Dean climbing onto his mattress to ease down the couch cushions onto his back. He presses the heel of his palm against his crotch through his thin pajama pants, wincing, and reaches up with the other to turn off the lamp.

            Sleep takes a very long time to come that night.

 

\- o -

 

            They wake to Dean's alarm at five-thirty on Saturday, dressing quickly in the darkness of the apartment. The sun's already coming up by the time they hit a drive-through for breakfast before getting onto the interstate, Dean's hands deft and sure on the coffees as he takes them from the tired-looking woman at the window. His smile's soft and voice low as he tells her, "Hey, thanks," and hands them off to Cas to put in the cup holder. He'd walked up to the Impala instead of Cas's car, and Cas had gone along, still shuffling sleepily. He hadn't thought, at the time, to bring the GPS, but Dean doesn't seem to need it, pulling onto the interstate and sipping quietly from his coffee.

            "You can go back to sleep, I promise I won't get us lost."

            To Castiel's surprise, he does. When he wakes, it's full daylight, perhaps nine o'clock, though still early enough that it's not too hot in the car even though the windows are closed. Dean has one of his hair bands, as Sam calls them, playing at a low volume, and he's mouthing along to the words. He looks soft in the morning light, golden-edged in a way Cas has never seen outside of films where the filter is used to show characters in a flashback, to indicate a happiness that has been, and maybe never will be again. The soft stubble on his face and neck seems to hold the light, his eyes clear as pools of water as he glances over at Cas, finds him awake and looking back. "Mornin'."

            Castiel rubs his eyes, pushes his feet against the foot well to sit up. "Where are we?"

            "Not quite halfway."

            Castiel pushes his knee against the sharp corner of the textbooks in Dean's ever-present bag. "Shall I break out the fun?"

            "No tests this week," Dean says gleefully. "That means no studying. Just Zep." He shoves on his sunglasses and turns up the music, begins to rap his fingers along the steering wheel in time to the beat now that Cas is awake.

            "You enjoy driving," Castiel observes after a moment.

            Dean bobs his head. "Yeah. We moved around a lot when me'n Sam were kids." He pauses and lifts his coffee cup to his mouth. Castiel doesn't think he actually takes a sip, just touches it to his lips like he's considering it. "When you move around that much, the road is the only place that actually feels like home, you know?"

            Castiel studies his profile. "Why did you move around?"

            "You know. My dad's work and stuff." Dean lowers his coffee back to the cup holder without taking a drink from it. "What about you? Syracuse to Lawrence, that's not a short drive."

            Castiel's gaze slides to the window. "I suppose I enjoy being away from home."

            Dean glances over at him. "Sorry to hear that."

            Castiel shrugs. He dislikes when Dean goes _provider_ on him, gets that low sympathetic voice he uses with patients. He doesn't want to be a patient. He wants to be more. "There are worse things. Where are we going?"

            Dean nearly laughs at the quick change of subject. "I thought this one state park? Me and Sam went there when we were kids."

            Castiel's interest is piqued. Hungry as Dean was, last time, to hear stories about Sam at college, Castiel is just as hungry to hear about his and Sam's childhood. Their conversation earlier in the week didn't remove his curiosity, only made him wary of how he satisfies it. "Which one?"

            "Trail of Tears State Park?" Dean glances over at him as though to ask if he knows it. Castiel shakes his head. "Our dad took us. Sam was, I dunno, eight or something."

            Something Castiel has noticed is that Dean tends to measure time by Sam's mile markers rather than his own. _When Sam was in fifth grade_ , he had said last weekend, and now, _Sam was eight_. "How old were you?"

            "Me?" Dean looks surprised by the question, brows rising above his sunglasses. "Uh...I guess twelve? What, you trying to figure out how old I am?"

            "I know how old you are, Dean."

            Dean lifts his coffee to his lips again, smiling behind the rim. "How old am I, Cas?"

            "Thirty-one."

            Dean's near spit-take is priceless. "Fuck no!" he cries. "Jesus, I look that old?"

            "Thirty-one is hardly old, Dean," Cas intones. "I am thirty-five."

            Dean flicks wide eyes at him. Castiel's composure breaks: A corner of his mouth turns up.

            "Oh, fuck you!" Dean exclaims, shoving his shoulder. "You're so full of shit, Cas."

            "It's not my fault my bowel is obstructed."

            Dean groans. "Now I know how Charlie feels."

            "How did you meet Charlie?"

            Dean casts him another glance, this one puzzled. "Why all this interest all of a sudden?"

            Cas raises a brow. "Because I find you interesting, Dean. You haven't picked up on that fact in all the time I've been following you around?"

            Dean smirks even as a flush climbs up the back of his neck. "Well, I wasn't going to point it out."

            Cas smiles, wide and sincere. "Your discretion is appreciated, but unnecessary."

            "What's that supposed to mean?"

            "What do you wish for it to mean?"

            Dean shoots him a suspicious look. Then he focuses on the road again and says, "Well, anyway, we were in Missouri. And Dad was sick of us bitching about being stuck in the car, so he pulled off at the exit for the park. Sam was pissed at first because he wanted to go to a library instead, but then he got all excited because the park had some sort of display going with a meteorite that fell there, like, two hundred years ago.

            "It was just some five-pound hunk of rock, but Sam went Cocoa Puffs over it. He was in his astronomy phase then, kept having me quiz him on the names of Saturn's moons and all that shit." He glances over at Cas. "Your brother go through that phase too?"

            "Alfie's childhood obsession was dinosaurs," Cas says, surprised to find himself smiling at the memory rather than pained by it. "He could tell you exactly how to tell a brachiosaurus from an apatosaurus, or what pterodactyls ate."

            Dean grins. "How many times did he make you watch _The Land Before Time_?"

            Cas rolls his eyes. "Which one?"

            They laugh.

 

\- o -

 

            Not until they begin to see road signs informing them of the distance to Trail of Tears State Park does Castiel realize that the park is in Cape Girardeau. He falters in the conversation he and Dean are having about which of Saturn's moons Jo might be from, but Dean doesn't appear to notice, too distracted by trying to get into the exit lane from the left lane he's insisted on staying in throughout the drive.

            Castiel doesn't say anything about it as they pull into a bank for a cash withdrawal he doesn't really need and then to a grocery store to buy deli sandwiches to take with them to the park. But it hovers at the back of his mind like a cracked tooth, his tongue returning to it again and again to worry at the sharp edges.

 

\- o -

 

            It's hot and sunny when Dean pulls into one of the park's parking lots, nestled amid a pebbled road that winds through full, leafy trees. He's brought them close to a swimming area on the Mississippi River, and as Castiel gets out of the car, metal door groaning, he can hear splashing and laughter floating from the shore through the trees. He pulls his own sunglasses on, already feeling himself start to sweat as he walks around to the back of the car. Dean has the trunk open, is pulling a bottle of Coppertone SPF 50 from a duffel bag inside it. He snaps the lid open to squirt a bunch in his hand, and when he looks up and sees Castiel rolling his eyes, he says, "Fine, but don't sue me when you get melanoma, Tan Man."

            "Tan Man?" Cas's wry tone says exactly what he thinks of that. But he supposes that after three years in California, he has more color than Dean, who seems to spend the majority of his time inside a classroom, the clinic, or the hospital. He studies Dean, wondering how his green eyes would look in a darker face; then, when Dean glances at him again, holds his hand out for a squirt of the Coppertone. Now he has the action as an excuse to watch Dean's movements, mimicking the way Dean rubs his hands up and down his forearms and across the back of his neck. He's wearing jeans despite the heat, unlike Castiel, who's wearing khaki shorts with his t-shirt.

            At Castiel's pointed look, he smirks. "Sweetheart, I don't do shorts."

            "I should hope not. They're inanimate objects." Castiel swipes his fingertips across Dean's nose, leaving him with a smear of white sunscreen there, made daring by Dean's smirk and _sweetheart_. Dean huffs at him but rubs in the sunscreen.

            Dean's got a green cooler in the trunk, too, with a couple water bottles swimming in water that was probably ice when they left this morning, which makes Castiel look at him from the corner of his eye. He doesn't say anything, though, because the tips of Dean's ears are already a little pink, and he doesn't think they've been outside long enough yet for it to be from the sun. It makes him feel even warmer, the evidence that Dean put this much thought into their day trip, though he doesn't want to kid himself by thinking it necessarily means what he would like it to.

            They take their sandwiches and water and the jumbo bag of peanut M&Ms Dean bought at the deli to a picnic table near a pavilion full of little kids running around and beating the tar out of a frog-shaped piñata. Dean does a running commentary under his breath pretending to be the piñata, and Castiel nearly chokes on his ham sandwich two separate times from laughing.

            "Go ahead, go ahead, I know the Heimlich, I'll save you," Dean says, grinning as Cas glares at him with watering eyes, and even though they're directly under the sun, sweating like pigs, he's taken off his sunglasses to squint a grin at Cas. "Choke to your heart's content."

            They talk, and talk, the M&M's half melted in their bag by the time Dean tears it open. They leave sticky rainbow smears behind on their fingers and palms as they eat them, Dean making fun of Cas's habit of sucking on each one until the candy coating is colorless and soft before crunching into it, and Cas makes a joke about suction that has Dean grinning and reddening at the same time.

            When his phone starts playing Sam's ringtone, Dean smears his sticky hands down the sweaty sides of his water bottle to clean them so he can take his phone out of his pocket. As he talks to Sam, Castiel watches his free hand playing with the bottle and wonders what it would feel like to have those same hands sliding down his skin the way they slid down the water bottle. He's sweaty and slick and he doesn't want this day to end.

            "All right, all right, I can hear Zack shouting for you from here," Dean says finally. "Go with his sorry ass to the mall, I'll talk to you later." He flashes one more grin down at the table, no doubt from something Sam says, then flips his phone shut and looks up at Cas. "Sam says we should do some of the east loop trail, see the river."

            "He recalls that from a single trip when he was eight?"

            Dean grins again. "Dude, you've been living with my brother a year and you're surprised he's a genius?"

            Cas concedes this point. "I'm getting old, you see, my memory is starting to go."

            "Yeah, thirty-five." Dean nods in mock sympathy. "You'll be hitting menopause any day now."

            "Yes, I'm already starting to experience hot flashes." Cas holds his sweaty collar away from his neck and hides a small at the way Dean's gaze dips down, the bob of his Adam's apple as he swallows. "I'm going to need Premarin soon."

            "Dude!" Dean grabs their lunch trash as he gets up. "You know what Lenore told me the other day? That stuff's made from mare's piss!"

            "Mare, as in a female horse?" Castiel follows Dean to the trail head.

            Dean waggles his brows. "Yup."

            Castiel considers this. "There are so many inappropriate jokes that could be made with that information," he says wistfully.

            Dean cackles. "Right?!"

 

\- o -

 

            There's a spot along the trail where the ground rises up on either side of it, like a half-pipe made of soil and exposed roots. Cas drags his fingers along them as they walk, listening to the sound their shoes make through the dead leaves collected along the trail here, the crickets in the hypnotizing, dream-like heat of the afternoon.

            "Dean," he says after a while.

            Dean glances back at him. There's sweat darkening his shirt along his shoulder blades. It looks almost like a pair of wings trailing down his back. His voice is teasing as he says, "Cas."

            "Why did we come here?"

            Embarrassment flickers across Dean's face nearly too quickly to see, hidden by a smile and shrug. "I told you, we came here when I was a kid."

            "I don't think that's all of it." Cas falls into step with him. He considers Dean from the corner of his eyes for a moment, weighing the moment before him. "You read Carver Edlund's books."

            Dean's eyebrows fly up. "Have you read them?"

            "I used to."

            "Then last week--"

            "Coincidence," Castiel lies. He raises a brow. "This week?"  
            "Not coincidence," Dean says with one of those sheepish grins that makes him look as young as Sam.

            Castiel waits expectantly. "And?"

            Dean looks over at him, laughs. "Dude, that's all you're getting."

            Castiel gives him his most disappointed look.

            Dean laughs again. "No way. Especially not when you're some sort of writer, you'll judge me. Judgey McJudgerton."

            Castiel's pulse skips; he casts Dean a quick, piercing glance. "What makes you think I write?"

            Dean casts him a _Seriously, Cas?_ smirk. "Maybe the fact I can hear you typing away in the living room every night after I go to bed?"

            "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you--"

            "Cas, it's no problem." Dean's laughing. "It's better than the sounds Sammy makes at night."

            Castiel's mouth quirks up. "Yes, he is rather flatulent."

            Dean bursts out laughing. He doesn't stop until they reach the end of the trail and turn back.

            Which is when Castiel brings up the books again. "So. Cape Girardeau."

            Dean glances back at him. "Wow, Novak-Shurley. You say it with the French accent and everything."

            Cas grimaces at this use of his name. "You're evading the subject."

            "Am I?"

            Castiel raises a brow. "Are you going to force me to use some of the blackmail material I've acquired through Ellen and Jo?"

            Dean's gaze becoming speculative, as considering as Castiel's had been a moment before. "You're bluffing," he decides.

            "Rhonda Hurley," Cas says.

            Dean's eyes go wide. "What the--"

            "Apparently Jo has had adventures of her own," Cas says.

            Dean lets out a breath. His eyes are still wide, but he's smiling. "Son of a bitch."

            "Between that story and cock rings," Castiel says, "well. It's no wonder I find you interesting."

            Dean gapes at him for the second time that day. Castiel tucks his smile into the corner of his mouth and says, "Well?"

            Dean snaps his mouth shut. "It's stupid."

            Castiel waits.

            "If you don't read the series anymore you're not going to know what I'm talking about anyway."

            "I don't mind spoilers."

            Dean eyes him again. "When did you stop reading?"

            Castiel's lips thin despite himself, creasing his smile into something less happy. "After the angel dies in the reservoir."

            Dean eyes him. "I always wanted to ask--it can't be a coincidence you've got the same name."

            Castiel feels a moment of panic. Sometimes he forgets how piercing Dean's eyes can be. "And yet, it is." For the first time, the tables feel reversed, Dean eyeing Castiel as Castiel tries not to avoid his gaze but not to meet it at the same time.

            Eventually, Dean nods slowly. "Well. _Castiel_ is still alive. Or alive again, I guess, who even knows anymore."

            The panic in Castiel's chest solidifies into a sharp, shocked weight. He stares at Dean.

            "But now he's fallen," Dean says. "All the angels are, because this one douche-ass angel tore them out of Heaven. It's this really great scene, though, they're all just shooting down to earth like a bunch of meteors. It just..." He shrugs. "Made me think of this place. How the meteor fell somewhere that was part of this trail where people were run out of their homes." He shrugs again, uncomfortably. "I know it's stupid."

            Castiel's mind is racing. How did his father reach this point in the story? Where did the idea come from? He's so startled by it, so angered by _being_ startled by it, that he finds his steps faltering to a halt.

            Dean's watching him, an anxious light in his eyes; he's removed his sunglasses. "Cas?"

            Castiel shakes his head, starts walking again. "Nothing."

            "Dude, c'mon. I'm not stupid."

            "I never implied you were," Cas says stiffly. Things have shifted, things have changed; Dean is reading things into his father's work that Castiel doesn't want to think about. Things he doesn't want to attribute to his father. Chuck has clearly made his way into Dean's thoughts in a way Castiel never has, and all he can find in himself is resentment, because Castiel came here to _escape_ his father. To escape the ghosts Chuck writes about and the ones his wife and children are to him; never able to touch him the way he touches them, the way he touches other people.

            He spins. "Do you know why I stopped reading those books, Dean?"

            Dean studies him. "That's rhetorical, right?"

            Castiel's mouth quirks despite himself. "The angels are idiots. They're fools. And the author's well aware of it. They keep believing in their god, and the reader keeps believing the author is going to do something with them, and they're both too stupid to realize they're wrong."

            "You..." Dean begins, and then stops. "You have really strong feelings about this."

            Castiel smiles darkly. "Let's just say hell hath no fury like a fan disappointed."

            After a moment, Dean says, "You don't like what happens to the angels?"

            "What is there to like about what happens to the angels?" Cas retorts, all set to launch into an argument he had over and over with Alfie. Then something occurs to him, and he looks more closely at Dean. He realizes: "You _like_ the angels."

            "Well...yeah." Dean looks taken aback and embarrassed at the same time. His hands slide into his pockets. "They don't find out until it's too late that they've built their whole lives around a dad who doesn't even give a shit. What's not to sympathize with?"

            Castiel studies him. "Sympathy and empathy aren't the same."

            Dean reddens under the scrutiny, his brows creasing angrily. "Don't use a book to fucking psychoanalyze me, Cas."

            "A person's response to a work says a lot about them."

            "Then what does your piss-fit about the angels say?" Dean retorts. "Are you a 'fool?'" He crooks his fingers into quotation marks, sarcastically.

            "Yes," Castiel says immediately. "I've tried my whole life to escape my parents' influence, only to find myself becoming more like them the harder I try." He doesn't even try to hide the bitterness in his smile. "You might say I identify quite strongly with _God_ stiel."

            Dean looks confused for a moment, then unimpressed. "Yeah, well, join the club. We're all shitty versions of our parents."

            Cas glowers at him. Dean glowers back.

            Cas breaks first, turning away and starting down the trail again. "One day you won't get the last line in these conversations."

            "Why do we keep _having_ these conversations?" Dean retorts, stomping after him. "If you watched sports like a normal person we could just talk about football and be done with it."

            "You haven't watched a sports game since I got here," Cas counters. "The closest you've come is _So You Think You Can Dance_."

            Dean sputters. "That's because it's summer!"

            "And _Wipeout_ ," Cas adds thoughtfully, ignoring him. His forehead creases as he realizes, "We're going to miss tonight's episode."

            Dean gives him a _you're so weird and I'm going to hide the fact that I like it_ look. "They'll have it online."

            "It's not the same." Castiel has grown spoiled, used to watching it with Dean on the couch, Dean shoving Castiel's knee with his foot and saying, _Holy crap, did you_ see _that?!_ every time something particularly painful happens. "I have a solution."

            "What?"

           

\- o -

 

            Dean looks at the Motel 8 sign. "No."

            Castiel pulls on the steering wheel, which gets him a _bitch, get your hands off my car_ glare. "Dean."

            "Cas."

            "We won't get home till past one if we drive back tonight."

            "Doable," Dean grunts. At Cas's arched brow, he concedes, "With a Monster."

            "Oh, yes, that'll look excellent in your obituary," Cas says sarcastically. "Future nurse practitioner dies of cardiac arrythmias from consuming energy drinks. Ruby will laugh at your funeral."  
            "Jeez, who are you, Sam?" Dean mutters, but pulls into the motel's parking lot.

            "Consider it your summer vacation," Cas says as he gets out of the car, holding up a hand to keep Dean from following. "Since you've spent all of it working."

            Dean spears him on a green-eyed look through the open passenger door. "Why do I get the feeling you just want us to spend the night together?"

            "Because you're paranoid and ridiculous," Cas says. "I sleep five feet away from you every night; I could watch you sleep at home."

            Instead of looking horrified, which really would have been the proper response, Dean says, "In Lawrence."

            Castiel gives him a _does not compute_ expression. Dean clarifies: "In Lawrence. You said 'at home.'"

            Castiel rolls his eyes. "I admitted my affection for you, Dean. Why don't you just do the same?"

            Dean sputters as Cas smirks and heads for the motel office.

 

\- o -

 

            Castiel has never stayed in a Motel 8 before, although he's heard the commercials about leaving a light on, so he's pleasantly surprised by the neatness of the room with its two blue-blanketed beds and unscuffed walls. It's not the only pleasant surprise waiting for him. Dean, after grumbling as he steps through the door about how this is totally unnecessary, goes to the bed closer to the door and drops a duffel bag on top of it. Cas eyes it, then looks at Dean expectantly.

            Dean unzips it and pulls out a t-shirt and jeans. "In case we went swimming," he explains with a shrug.

            "You didn't tell me to pack spare clothes."

            Dean rolls his eyes and takes another article of clothing out of the duffel bag. It's the ridiculously large **LAWRENCE, KS** t-shirt Castiel bought from a drug store his first weekend in Lawrence.

            Cas blinks at it. "You packed my clothing?"

            "Sorry," Dean mumbles, shoving the bag across the bed to Castiel. "Figured you wouldn't mind."

            Castiel doesn't mind. In fact, there aren't words for how _little_ he minds.

            He watches Dean thoughtfully as Dean mumbles something about taking first shower and retreats into the bathroom. He strips himself and dresses in the tourist t-shirt and a pair of his pants just as thoughtfully, and if he has to press the heel of his hand onto an erection as he thinks of Dean in the shower only a few feet away, well, it's not unexpected.

           

\- o -

 

            Dean shifts under the stiff bed sheet and the thin brown blanket above it. The clunky AC unit between his bed and the window kicked on ten minutes ago, and he's fucking _freezing_. The hotel comforter is slumped in a pile at the foot of his bed, and he's seriously tempted to pull it back over him except for that feature he and Sammy saw on Dateline a few years back where the reporter found like 30 different semen samples on a hotel bedspread. He'd expected Cas to arch an eyebrow at him for shoving it off the mattress when they went to bed, but he'd done the same thing, using just the tips of his sock-covered toes.

            He's pretty sure Cas fell asleep almost as soon as the Iron Man marathon on FX ended half an hour ago, so he slides out from under his covers as quietly as he can to crouch in front of the AC to figure out how to turn it off. There's a big dial on the side that makes a loud cracking noise when he turns it to **Low** , but the freezing air gusting from the vents straight onto his bed doesn't stop. He grumbles under his breath and tries toggling the dial back and forth, with about the same effect.

            A disgruntled sound comes from Cas's bed. Dean winces and twists around to glance back at him.

            One of Cas's eyes gleams back, half-lidded, in the light from the digital clock on the nightstand. Then Cas turns his face in his pillow and moves over silently on his bed, making a sound that might mean _you can share my bed_ but might also just be Dean being hopeful. Dean shifts on his knees.

            Cas pulls his head out of his pillow. "Dean."

            That was an unmistakable _get over here_ , so Dean grabs one of his pillows and the scratchy brown blanket from his bed and drags it to Cas's. He settles on top of Cas's brown blanket, sighing contentedly at the merciful absence of below-zero air blasting onto him. Cas has buried his head in his pillow again, making a sound into it that might mean _good night_.

            Dean curls his toes inside his socks and tries not to feel insulted by the total absence of an attempt to get inside his pajama pants.

 

\- o -

 

            The next morning, he drifts awake slowly, drawn out of sleep by a quiet tapping sound beside him. For a minute, the warmth around him feels so good it hurts. He closes his eyes tighter, not wanting to leave it. Then he sighs and turns onto his side, opening his eyes.

            There's a big lump beside him. It's Cas, stretched out on his stomach with the brown blanket pulled over his head as he studies a picture on his cell phone. Dean blinks blearily at Cas with his blanket-hood, then at the picture on his phone screen. He blinks again, but the picture doesn't change. It's a rock. Or a cross-section of a liver, he's not sure.

            "What're you looking at?"

            Cas turns his head, blanket slipping off his head to pool on his shoulders. It exposes the craziest case of bed head Dean's ever seen, and he's been living with Cas for weeks now. "Chondrite. It's what the Cape Girardeau meteorite was made of, apparently."

            Dean gives him a smug _so you've been thinking about what I said_ look.

            Cas grunts.

            Dean turns over in his cocoon of blanket, getting more comfortably onto his side to look at the rock on the phone screen. Cas takes the opportunity to tug some of his own blanket out from under Dean and pull it over himself again, leaving his phone on the sheets between them so Dean can see it. Dean's struck with the strangest urge to put his hand on the lump Cas's head makes under the covers.

            Before he can, Cas's voice emerges from under the blanket, muffled. "There may have been a reason behind my 'piss-fit.' "

            "Obviously." Dean gets his arm under his head so he can rest his cheek on his bicep. "What was it?"

            "Carver Edlund's my father."

            Dean blinks. Cas turns his head just enough for his eyes to be visible under the blanket, and they stare at each other for a few moments, until there's the sound of a car pulling up outside the room and a woman bitching at her husband about getting coffee with sugar instead of Splenda.

            Finally, Dean sits up. "You're not shitting me."

            "No."

            Dean stares for another minute. "So the angel--he named him after you."

            Cas's eyes are pained. "Perhaps the other way around. But yes."

            Dean's eyes get wider. "And the other one--is that your brother?"

            Something shifts in Castiel's eyes. Becomes an animal, startled and caged. "Other one?"

            "Samandriel," Dean says. "Oh man. But that's--" _Messed-up._

            Cas looks stricken. "Alfie was in the books?"

            "Well--sort of--I mean--" Dean makes himself stop. He shifts on his elbow. "Cas, maybe you should read the new ones."

            "He kills him, doesn't he," Cas says dully. It's not really a question, as if he already knows the answer. And considering the things that happen to the Castiel in the books, maybe Dean shouldn't be surprised. He understands the difference between fictional characters and real people, but--it's gotta be weird to have your dad writing a book series about characters with your name and killing them over and over...and over.

            Suddenly Cas's vehemence yesterday doesn't seem as weird. He reaches out and touches Cas's arm gently, the way he would an upset patient. "Cas..."

            Castiel is still for a moment. Then he rolls off the bed, shedding his blanket as he goes. "Shall we go?"

            At moments like this, Dean realizes just how short a time he's known this guy. That there's whole, huge pieces of Cas he doesn't know, and probably never will know, because two months from now Cas'll be back in Palo Alto.

            He slides out of the bed himself, feeling strangely naked despite the fact that he's still got sweats and a t-shirt on. "Yeah, sure. I'll go check us out." He grabs the key cards from the dresser. "I can hang outside if you want to...talk to Sam or something?"

            Cas gets out of the bed as well, pulls off his Lawrence shirt to put on his tee from the day before. He pulls it on with his back to Dean, says to the wall, "Sam doesn't know about my dad."

            The sentence shouldn't hit Dean as hard as it does. But it does; it's like a bowling ball whamming right under his ribcage. He stares at Cas's turned back. "But--"

            Cas turns. His expression is dark and wistful at the same time, and Dean thinks of thunderstorms, thinks of dark clouds and the fleeting lightning that forks through them, of angels burning as they plummet from the sky.

            "Breakfast," Cas says abruptly. "I believe I saw a Biggerson's?"

            Dean studies his face a moment longer. But whatever was there is gone; Cas is raising his eyebrows as he looks at Dean, eyes back to their normal lighter shade, and Dean clears his throat.

            "Dude. Biggerson's? Lawrence has turned you so trashy, man."

            "Yes, because I was so classy to begin with," Cas says dryly as they stuff their clothes into the duffel and head out the door. Dean leaves some cash from his jeans pocket on the dresser for the maid's tip.

            "True," Dean says. "You looked pretty trashed when we met in that McDonald's. Like some drunk kid coming from his prom. Was that barf on your collar?"

            He knows immediately he's said the wrong thing, though he doesn't know why. That darkness flickers back through Cas's eyes, like a tongue of lightning, and he smiles humorlessly down at his hands as Dean opens the trunk to put the duffel inside. "Something like that."

 

\- o -

 

            But maybe Dean hasn't screwed up so bad. Because Cas starts talking, on the way home.

            He talks about his mom's family and how they're all doctors and he and his brother were expected to be doctors, too. How there's an accelerated medical program at Columbia that his mother went to and expected him to go to, was angry when he didn't, and proud when Alfie did.

            He talks about how his parents met when they were in college and Chuck TA'd for one of Naomi's comp classes, and she hated him because she was so bad at writing, and she used to go to his office hours to bully him into giving her better grades, except he wouldn't, and she failed the class, but at the end of the semester she went up to his closet of an office and asked him out on a date because Chuck had been the first person ever not to give her what she wanted because of who her family was.

            He talks about how his dad hadn't had his Big Idea yet then, and his mom wasn't in med school yet, so they had time to go out and to fall in love; but then she hit med school and he got an agent to look at his first draft of _Supernatural_ , and they were both too busy to feel like the other was neglecting them, at least the way Naomi told it. How once she got out of school, things were good for a while; she worked in a small clinic to pay off her loans because she was on bad terms with her father, back then, for marrying Chuck; and Chuck taught at a junior college by day and worked on his novels by night, and it was during that time that Castiel was born.

            A few years later Samandriel was born, and that was when the cracks began to show, or maybe it just wasn't until then that Castiel was old enough to notice them. Naomi started working for her father again as he started chemo, and Carver Edlund's books were starting to take off, his publishers contracting him for at least five more past _Faith_ , and Cas and Alfie spent more and more time with Inias, with their grandparents, with everyone but Naomi and Chuck.

            Then there was the divorce.

            "Pretty soon after that, I got mono," Cas says. His voice is even gravellier than ever now, made rougher from talking for so long. "I'd just started boarding school, and they sent me home when I got sick. I stayed with my father because Mother was in Europe with Alfie. That was the last time I saw him before the books really became big. He spent a lot of time reading _Something Wicked_ to me, asking me what I thought he should change, what I would do if it had been me and Alfie."

            Castiel pauses. "I don't know if writing is like a...a microbe that can be caught, or if it's something that's inside you from the start, like a gene that gets turned on. But that was when I started doing it. My father got me a notebook, and I...well."

            He doesn't finish. Doesn't have to.

            There's so much more Dean wants to know, like what does he write and is any of it published and will he let Dean read it, but what comes out, instead, is, "So this whole medical school thing--it's not what you really wanna do."

            Cas's mouth quirks up in the closest thing to a smile that Dean's seen all morning. "Actually, I'm not so sure anymore."

            Dean makes himself look back at the road. "Yeah?"

            "Yeah," Cas says. Dean feels him looking over at him. "It's hard to watch you and not want to do what you do, Dean."

            Dean's so surprised he can't help his head snapping around to look at Cas. "What?"

            "You touch people," Cas says. "It's a clichéd expression, but I can't think of any more accurate way to put it. Your patients know you. They trust you. Do you remember Mrs. Wright?"

            "I...yeah?"

            Julia Wright is one of Missouri's older patients, but she hadn't been to the clinic in over a year until a week ago. She kept missing appointments because of her daughter's stint in rehab and then jail, court dates to get custody of her daughter's three-year-old, and trying to hold onto her job as a waitress in the midst of all of it.

            Dean had first met her when he was doing his externship as an LPN at Helping Hands; she'd been so lively then, blonde and proudly showing him pictures of her new grandson. The Mrs. Wright he'd seen with Castiel a few days ago had been a different woman, haggard and hair streaked with gray, hands trembling as she told Dean about being unable to fall asleep at night because she felt so guilty, so _guilty_ , about her daughter. Crying because what did I do for her to do this; what did I do for her to choose the drugs over us, over her _baby_ ; and Dean hadn't known what to do, hadn't been able to do anything but hold her hand. Hold it and not let go, hold it and tell her _you've been strong, so strong,_ and _we're going to get you through this. You're not alone, Mrs. Wright_.

            "She was crying when she arrived at the clinic, Dean," Cas says. "But she was smiling when she left." He's quiet for a minute, and Deal feels the weight of his gaze on the side of his face. "That was your doing."

            Dean attempts to laugh, because that's so patently untrue. But he doesn't quite manage; it comes out shaky and weird instead, so he tries to smile, to dismiss Cas's words, but that wavers, too, and he bites his lip.

            "It's just that--I know what it's like. You know? To be in their shoes."

            Cas doesn't ask _how_. Or _when_ or _why_ or _who_.

            And maybe that's why Dean takes a breath.

            "My dad," he says. "He was in the hospital a lot when we were younger. Our mom died when Sammy was a baby, so it was just me and Sam waiting for him, you know? In the hospital."

            He swallows.

            "I spent-- _so many_ hours of my life in those stupid waiting rooms, Cas. The feeling you get, when you're there--" The knotted-up insides, the stomach-turning smell of latex and stale coffee. People crying and talking and everyone wrapped up so tightly in their own grief and panic that it's like bees trapped in a hive, crawling over each other, buzzing and stinging and suffocating. Watching another family get good news made him ache with jealousy; watching another family get bad news making him sick with apprehension. And fielding Sammy's questions through all of it, trying to distract him when he was younger and sitting alone once he got older because _I've done this too many times, Dean. I'm not going to sit here and wait for him to not die again._

            He laughs, sudden. "That's where I found one of your dad's books, you know?"

            Cas's fingers touches Dean's hand where it lies next to the gear shift. Rests there, anchoring. "Which one?"

            "The clown one. You know, where they go work at that carnival with the rakshasa or whatever, and their dad's just...yeah." His hand twitches under Cas's. "Somebody left it behind in the waiting room--I didn't even know what it was, someone had torn half the cover off, and one of the corners was all warped from someone spilling coffee on it. But there wasn't anything else to do, so I--I read it.

            "Some hospitals have this, uh, this library program, kind of, for the people who are gonna be waiting a long time. People donate books, and you can check 'em out. So whenever we were in a hospital I looked to see if they had ones I hadn't read." He chuckles, suddenly. " _Lots_ of people donated _Bugs._ "

            Castiel snorts. Dean smiles.

            "Some of them were a lot harder to find," he says. "Like I never even got to read _Lazarus Rising_ until I met Becky at the clinic and she lent it to me. Same with _Free to Be You and Me_." He runs his teeth across his lip, draws it under them. "But I read a lot. I read a lot of 'em."

            It's a long moment before he looks over at Castiel. And when he does, guilt is starting to seep into him because he kind of forgot that Cas isn't exactly chill with his dad and here Dean is talking about how Cas's dad's books kind of kept him sane when his own dad was in the hospital.

            But Cas is staring back, and his hand is still on Dean's. When he says, "I'm glad they helped you," there's nothing but honesty in his voice.

            And it's a little overwhelming. A little too much. Dean slides his hand carefully out from under the warm weight of Cas's and puts it on the steering wheel. Clears his throat and says, "Hey, uh, you wanna turn on some music?"

            Cas doesn't say anything. Doesn't even sigh at Dean's obvious change of subject. He just leans forward and turns up the [volume](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0HOf3uR5-4).  


 

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**rating:** M

 **warnings:** Hot 'n heavy-ness ahead.

 **disclaimer:** Opinions espoused here are not necessarily those of the author. The Dusty Bookshelf is an actual bookstore in Lawrence according to Google, and I feel obligated at this point to note that there is a store called Dean's Books in Topeka.

 **notes:** In this fic, the Dean and Sam of Chuck's series are named Abel and Cain, respectively.

 

 

 **6.0**

_"This is good--harmony and communication."_

\-- "Reading Is Fundamental," 7.21

 

            That next week, Dean goes out of his way to be very, very busy. He picks up extra 6-to-12 half shifts at the hospital, which means that he and Castiel drive separately to the clinic each day so that Dean can drive straight to work afterward.

            Perhaps Castiel shouldn't be surprised that Dean's sharing of some very personal information has him scurrying back into his hole like a groundhog that's seen its shadow, but he can't help his disappointment regardless. And it certainly doesn't help the anxietyeagernessreluctanceneed inside him about the _Supernatural_ books he hasn't read.

            The books that, now that he knows his father brings Alfie into them, he can't _not_ read.

            Which is how he finds himself at a bookstore in Manhattan--because none of the bookstores in Lawrence stock anything as mainstream as his father's books, at least not the most recent installments. (Though he did find several practically new-looking copies of _Bugs_ and _Red Sky at Morning_ at The Dusty Bookshelf.)

            It occurs to him to buy them as digital books and read them on an e-Reader in secret, like a housewife reading _Fifty Shades of Gray_. But the series is tied up with memories of his brother, memories of them lying in the backyard or under the Christmas tree reading their dad's most recent book, laughing at the parts they recognized or growing sober at the ones just too thinly disguised for them not to, and somehow he's afraid of letting those memories of hardcover books and the smell of paper be written over with experiencing Abel and Cain's stories on a digital screen.

            As he kneels to find the books on the shelf dedicated to the _Supernatural_ series, Castiel thinks about how a copy of of each of these books are sitting on the bookshelf in Alfie's untouched room. Right there, at this very moment, waiting for Alfie to come home and open them again.

            For a moment, his fingers clench around his keys. He imagines driving back to Syracuse. Imagines creeping into Alfie's room past the third stair that creaks and the blue-lit aquarium set in the hallway wall. Imagines emptying Alfie's bookshelf, and his closet, too, maybe, finding that stupid Wiener Hut hat from the summer he got a job while Mother was in Australia supervising the construction of a new plant, or maybe even the white coat he got last December when he and his classmates first started making patient visits at the university hospital. He and Naomi fought over what to have embroidered on the breast; she wanted him to use his full name, Samandriel Novak-Shurley, which was unfortunate in so many ways, and he wanted to downgrade to Alfie Shurley.

            "Do you know the looks I get, Mom?" he'd said. Because Alfie was the only one who ever got away with calling her _Mom_ ; to Castiel she was _Mother_ or _Maman_ or _ma'am_. "My own classmates can't say my name, much less patients! I love you, but we've got to make some compromises here."

            It made Castiel snicker. That, in turn, made Naomi forget her argument with Alfie as sge snapped at Castiel to go up to his room and study for the MCAT since he hadn't seen fit to get into an accelerated program like his brother. Castiel had used the opportunity to coax her into an argument with him about how he was wasting his potential and just like his father and do you have any idea what it's like out there, Castiel? You can't live on _writing_! By the time she was finished, she just put her hand tiredly to her forehead and motioned _fine, do what you like_ to Alfie when he held up his coat order form.

            _Buzzzzz._

Castiel nearly jumps at the vibration in his pocket. He lets go of his keys as if they'd burned him, and pulls out his phone. The display shows a text from Dean: **working. don't wait up.**

            Cas doesn't text anything back. He piles every book from the seventh and eighth arcs of the series into his arms instead, making sure to grab paperback instead of hardcover whenever he can, and totes them up to the check-out desk in two trips. He smiles politely at the cashier's wide eyes, pulls out the last of his cash from the bank visit in Girardeau, and accepts the complimentary cloth _K-State!_ bags she offers him to hold them in.

            Then he hefts all the bags but one into his car and carries the remaining one back into the bookshop, where he settles down in the coffee shop area with an espresso and _Meet the New Boss_.

            He's read this one before. He actually read all the way up to _The Mentalists_ before he stopped, but he forces himself to skim through the early seventh arc books again. Through the fictional Castiel's attempt to remake the world and his death in the reservoir, through the sense of dread and uncertainty that accompanies them both and lingers through the hundreds of pages that follow, empty of hope and of any mention of the angel who shares Castiel's name.

            It rushes back to him as he reads, the sense of disposability he'd felt the first time he read the beginning of the seventh arc and realized his father had no intention of bringing Castiel's character back. He was applying for colleges then, hiding his applications from his mother who already had her personal assistant looking for apartments near Columbia's campus for Castiel. Chuck was on a publicity tour in Europe, and didn't answer the e-mail Castiel sent him, which was pretty much a _what the hell, Dad?_ Nor did he answer Castiel's texted request for him to call when he could, though Castiel did receive a polite message from Chuck's assistant Kevin Tran, assuring him Chuck would be in touch as soon as he had a chance.

            It made Castiel feel like an object used and tossed aside, like he and Alfie had only ever been an experiment for his father, children conceived and observed to use as bases for his father's characters. As if with _Hello, Cruel World_ , his use had been exhausted, and Chuck was on to bigger and better things.

           

\- o -

 

            He doesn't get to _The Born-Again Identity_ until Wednesday night. And when he does, he wishes he hadn't started rereading the books at all. Because it fills him with too much tentative, disbelieving hope when he reads, _As the demon's host began to smoke and convulse around the knife, Abel felt a prickle along the back of his neck. The weight of a stare, a weight he hadn't felt in months._

_He turned...and found himself staring into familiar blue eyes._

            Castiel should know better.

            He should know better than to believe in his father again, because one hundred and forty pages later, he's reading, _"Well, we can't bring him with us."_

            He closes the book without finishing it. Lies on Dean's sofa bed with it sitting heavy on his chest for a moment. Feels his heart thud against it.

            There's a point Dean showed him on the chest where the heart's beat can be felt the most strongly. The _point of maximal impulse_ , it's called, at the apex of the heart where the valve lets blood into the last chamber of the heart before the blood is pumped to the rest of the body. Sometimes the leaflets of the valve can collapse, and blood leaks back through them, to places the blood shouldn't go.

            _Maybe_ _that's what's happening now, Alfie?_ He rolls over and pulls his laptop from under the couch. _Despite all the things we used to say about reader response theory and the author-is-dead, etc., maybe the author's relationship should only ever be a one-way valve. At least in a connection as intimate--incestuous?--as this one? Dad lets our lives inform his books, but I shouldn't read what happens in his books into our lives..?_

            His fingers hesitate on the keys. _I can't stop thinking about it. Whether what happens to Castiel is because of something I did._

 _Was Dad angry with me? Perhaps not consciously, but..._ _I fought so often with Mother. I always thought Dad was just too timid for arguments, but perhaps the truth is that he merely found other channels through which to vent his displeasure. The Abel/Castiel dynamic alone..._ he types, then deletes it, as hasty and uncertain as if Alfie was really there reading it over his shoulder. He never asked Alfie what he thought of Abel and Castiel's relationship. He was always too frightened to, had known that just because a person was accepting of homosexuality as a concept in theory, they weren't always as welcoming when they found it in practice within their own family, and he was too scared to find out whether Alfie was one of those people. Even if Alfie wasn't, Castiel hadn't wanted to burden him with the stress of that secret and of concealing it from their mother.

            But almost from the moment he read _Heaven and Hell_ , and wondered at the dialogue tags mentioning the weight of Castiel's eyes on Abel and Anna, he'd wondered. Wondered if his father knew, if this was his way of telling Castiel he'd figured it out.

            And then, as books and books passed, and no acknowledgement of a relationship between them was made, if it was his way of saying, _I don't approve. This is not allowed._ You _are not allowed._

Wondered if Castiel's repeated deaths were part of that condemnation.

            _Alfie..._ Castiel types. But that's all. He can't think of what else to write to a brother who's never going to read this anyway, and instead he lies there staring at the blinking cursor until he falls asleep.

 

\- o -

 

            Cas is lying on the sofa with his laptop open on his belly when Dean gets back to the apartment at half past midnight. Dean studies him for a moment as he locks the door by feel behind him. Cas is wearing his Lawrence t-shirt again, and a pair of black basketball shorts that leave his calves exposed, the lean muscles and the crescent-shaped white scar on his right knee that Cas had told him was from the time a fishing hook got caught there when he tripped trying not to step on the fish his dad had just reeled out of the water.

            Dean sets down his bag by the door and goes to the couch to lift Cas's laptop gently from his stomach. He closes it without looking at the screen and crouches to slide it carefully under the couch.

            There's a pile of neatly folded scrubs already there, no doubt gathering lint and God knows what else from the carpet, and Dean frowns. He pulls them out and scoots over to where Cas's navy blue suitcase sits in the small space between the couch and the wall to put them inside it.

            But when he opens the suitcase, he finds it's already full. There's stacks and stacks of books crammed inside. The colorful cover art is new to him, but he recognizes the titles: _Repo Man_ and _Southern Comfort_ and what looks like practically every other book in Carver Edlund's series, Jesus.

            He glances back up at Cas's face. It's surprisingly severe in sleep, his mouth turned downward and forehead creased. Dean's known he was up to something from how tired he's looked at the clinic the past few days, even though Cas has stuck mostly to Bobby's office, as if to give Dean space--an action Dean resents at the same time he appreciates it because a part of him, maybe, _wants_ Cas to dig deeper, to make Dean share--but he hadn't realized this was what was carving those circles under his eyes.

            He traces his thumb across the embossed letters of _A Little Slice of Kevin_ where it's crammed against the crumpled suit Cas had been wearing at McDonald's that first day. Then he picks up Cas's scrubs and takes them into the bedroom.

 

\- o -

 

            When Castiel gets up that next morning, Dean's already come and gone, the smell of coffee filling the apartment. He had a 12-hour shift starting at 7, Castiel recalls, because the Joint Commission is coming to the hospital's ER that afternoon to evaluate them for re-accreditation, and the administrators had wanted as many nurses on hand as possible.

            Castiel turns over on the couch, breathing in the smell of the old fabric, and contemplates staying home today. But the edge of _Identity_ is digging into his hip, and he knows if he doesn't go to the clinic, he'll end up reading again. So he lowers his feet stiffly to the floor, reaching absently under the sofa for his scrubs. When his fingers find only the hard corner of his laptop, he frowns and leans down to look.

            His scrubs are gone from where he'd put them to make room for his father's books. In their place on the carpet is a sticky note torn from one of Dean's drug rep notepads, this one emblazoned with the **Propecia--the only FDA-Approved Pill Proven to Treat Male Pattern Hair Loss!** logo at the top.

            _Dresser, top drawer_.

            Castiel looks at Dean's handwriting for a moment. Then he goes into Dean's bedroom. The bed with its navy blue comforter is sloppily made, the nightstand empty of anything but a digital clock and a framed picture of Dean and Sam. The wooden dresser is scuffed, mostly likely second hand, and the top drawer only has one handle. Cas pulls it carefully, like it'll come off in his hand, but it doesn't, just opens the drawer smoothly.

            Inside, Dean's neatly rolled t-shirts have been shoved to one side to make room for Cas's just as neatly refolded scrubs.

            Castiel exhales.

                       

\- o -

 

            It's past ten by the time Dean gets home that night, mind still racing from all the questions he answered for the JC reps and the ones he answered afterward from his bosses about what the JC reps asked him. He only remembers as he's fitting his key into the front door to open it quietly so he doesn't wake Cas if he's already sleeping.

            But the lamp's on. Cas is still awake, sitting at the kitchen counter in his white sleep shirt and blue pajama pants with his glasses on as he squints at his laptop.

            "Hey," Dean says, and it's been such a long day that he's only remembering now that he and Cas haven't really talked since the weekend. But the eyes Cas turns on him from behind his dark glasses are so blue that he forgets it just as quickly, stops stupidly in the doorway because something is different; something _feels_ different.

            Cas is already sliding off his stool, pulling off his glasses.

            "Dean," he says, no more or less meaning in it than usual. But somehow it falls into Dean like a pebble into water, sending ripples through him. He watches Cas pad around the counter to the stove, watches him pull bowls from the cupboard and begin to spoon something into them from a pot on the stove. It smells like something Dean hasn't smelled since he was young and held, and his hand is coming up to fist in the hem of Cas's t-shirt as he watches Cas's slender hand, watches it spoon tomato soup into bowls. He's grasping it and he's shivering because suddenly he feels like he's coming loose at the seams, like absorbable stitches put in to hold him together are dissolving too soon.

            "Cas," he whispers, and what he's about to say is _thank you_ , but Cas is looking down at the hand around his shirt, pausing with the spoon and tilting his head.

            Self-consciousness filters back into Dean, and he goes to pull back. But Cas's hand closes around his. Curls slowly around it, each finger closing one by one, and then he sets down the spoon and slides his other hand up Dean's arm, across his shoulder and up to the nape of his neck.

            They're still for a moment, breaths mingling as Castiel regards Dean.

            Then Dean leans his head forward and lets their lips touch, press. Pulls back even more slowly, eyes closed to feel the way their lips cling and part.

            Castiel presses his fingertips against Dean's neck. The light touch is enough to pull him in again, to tighten both his hands around Cas's waist and turn them, to back Cas into the counter. Cas's mouth opens under his, slants over it, and Dean makes a sound, grips Cas, lifts him onto the counter without breaking the kiss. Cas bends his head to kiss hard, hands sliding forward to span Dean's jaw, to tilt Dean's head where he wants it, to delve and suck. Dean pushes forward harder, the edge of the counter digging into his hips, and Cas hooks his ankles behind Dean's back to pull himself forward to the edge of the counter, to press flush against Dean's front. 

            Dean tears his mouth away, inhaling sharply. Cas's hands loosen on his jaw immediately, sifting up to curl loosely in his short hair instead. "Dean."

            "I'm--this isn't a good idea." Dean tries to disentangle himself, biting his lip to scrape his and Cas's combined saliva from it.

            Castiel's legs tighten around him. "You don't always have to think of the consequences of everything, Dean."

            Dean won't meet his eyes. "This sort of thing doesn't come without strings, man."

            Cas's mouth is against his forehead. His hands stay curled against his temples. He murmurs, "What do you think I'm going to take from you?"

            Dean squeezes his eyes shut.

            Cas's lips brush across his brow. He breathes, "Let me take care of you."

            And how does Dean say _I'm not supposed to be taken care of_ without revealing a thousand messy, stupid, ugly things he doesn't want to look at himself, much less let anyone else see?

            He fists his hands harder in Cas's t-shirt, over his hips. Grinds his forehead into Cas's collarbone, because this needs to be clear. "I don't need you to fix me."

            Cas sifts his fingers through the hair at Dean's temple, carefully. "There's nothing to fix," he tells the pulse there, and Dean shivers. Grips harder.

            Cas tilts Dean's head up. He studies him for a moment, hand at his chin, and then he kisses him again. Dean opens to it, pushes his hands along Cas's sides to the small of his back to pull him harder into it, and when they break apart this time, he says, "You--you wanna...?"

            Cas flashes a sudden smile, white and pink with the gums that only show up when he's smiling so big his eyes crinkle. "Dean."

            It's a _yes_ and a _duh_ and a _do you even have to ask_ rolled into one. And suddenly Dean's pulling back again, self-conscious all over again about the hospital smell clinging to him, the fact that he wiped three different people's asses on his shift, and stammering something about taking a shower real quick. He retreats, and when he comes back, Cas is still in the living room, sitting on the couch in front of the eleven o'clock news like he's leaving room for Dean to change his mind, if he wants to.

            He hovers in his bedroom doorway with his hair dripping onto his shirt because he was too rushed to dry it, and his toes feel really bare, curling in the cheap carpet, and all he can think is what a stupid thing that is to be thinking about as he says, "Cas?"

            Cas turns on the couch, turning off the TV. His intent blue eyes are back to dominating his face now, no smile to be seen. Just that searching gaze, studying Dean's face. "You're sure."

            A question hovers inside the words. Dean swallows.

            " _Yes_ , I'm sure," he says, trying to inject a little more Captain Kirk and a little less Disney Princess into the situation, and he digs his fingers into Cas's hips as Cas comes close enough to touch, as Cas leans in until their noses are touching. He's not sure then if he should kiss him, if he's allowed to kiss him, but Cas takes care of it, takes one of Dean's hands and pulls him to the bed, crawling under the covers without letting go. It's awkward but at the same time not, pulling back the comforter and sheets and lying down with only one hand.

            Cas doesn't curl up into Dean, or around him. Just bounces his head down on the pillow closest to the wall like he's claiming it for his own. He's brought his glasses with him, dropping them on the nightstand, and there's something so confident about the gesture, like an assertion that he'll be there the next morning to pick them up and shove them on again, that Dean's scooting across the bed to worm his hand under Cas's shirt, to rest it on the smooth skin underneath, thumb splayed so he can feel the throb of his aorta beside his navel. Cas sighs, warmth wafting across Dean's face. A hand wriggles similarly up under his t-shirt, and Dean falls asleep to the circles it rubs lightly along his side.

 

 

 

 

 

\- o -

           

            His phone goes off at its usual time of 6:15 the next morning. Dean tries to lift his hand to turn it off, but his hand is trapped in something. It's Cas's shirt; he encounters warm skin as he slides his hand up in search of his phone. Cas groans, thrusts into the bed, and suddenly Dean's wide awake.

            His phone alarm becomes a secondary concern as he shifts to wriggle his other hand under Cas's stomach and smooth it up his chest. Cas groans into the pillow he's got his face buried in, pushing into Dean's hands, and Dean bites his lip, fascinated by the noises, the movements.

            Cas rolls over abruptly, smacking into Dean's chest so hard a breath whooshes out of him.

            "You can't do that if we're going to get to the clinic on time," he says, and if Dean had thought his voice was gravelly before, it's nothing compared to now. Dean's hips give an involuntary jerk against the small of Cas's back.

            "You can't talk if we're going to get out of here at all," he says, breathless.

            Cas makes a half laugh, half groan, and crawls up to get out of the bed, gets tangled in the blankets and ends up slithering off head-first, legs flailing in the covers.

            Dean bolts upright immediately, scrambling to slide off the bed. "Dude, you okay?"

            "Yes, yes--" Cas is waving a hand lazily in the air as he lies tangled face-first in the blankets on the floor, "just trying to calm my raging hard-on."

            Dean laughs, mildly amazed that he can laugh over this, that he's not freaking the fuck out, and settles on the floor Indian-legged next to Cas. He bends over him, chest to Cas's back, to bury a wet kiss behind his ear, and Cas flails, growls an unconvincingly stern " _Dean_ " into the blanket, and twists around to pull himself onto his knees so he can push Dean down and kiss him instead.

           

\- o -

 

            **so how mad would you be if i transferred to vandy?**

Castiel looks at Sam's text. Contemplates replying something to the effect of "I am not physically capable of anger when I have two hickeys from your brother decorating each side of my collarbone." Decides that Dean might kill him and Sam doesn't deserve such trauma even if he is considering leaving Castiel without a roommate next year, which really means leaving Castiel possibly to be assigned a freshman as a roommate, or even worse, an athlete. **I would most likely demand your firstborn child as recompense for such a betrayal.**

            Castiel receives a round yellow smiley-face graphic that he thinks might be the equivalent of Sam's usual "lol." **i was just wondering! gabe told me to think about it**

            **I'll name your child Rapunzel, as a reminder that parents should not cross individuals more powerful than them.**

**oh my god cas stop**

**Rapunzel Muttonchop Winchester, in honor of your hair.**

**!!!!!! i'm never letting you hang out with dean again**

Castiel rubs a hand across his clavicle under his scrubs and smirks.

 

\- o -

 

            Dean falls asleep making out on the couch that night, which Castiel might be more insulted by if Dean had gotten more than four hours a sleep any night that week. And if he hadn't woken on the couch the next morning to Dean's hand on his stomach again, in that spot just next to his belly button, and Dean's morning erection warm and sleepy against his hip. He traces his own hand up and down Dean's side, under Dean's faded Metallica t-shirt, until Dean wakes up, exhaling a long yawn against Castiel's mussed hair.

            "What time is it?" he mumbles.

            "Is your phone in your pocket?"

            Dean mumbles some sort of affirmative into Cas's hair, clearly still more asleep than awake. By the time Cas manages to pull Dean's phone from his pocket between them, however, he's wide awake, sitting up. "Oh God. I'm sorry." He's got a flush lingering along his collarbone, the tips of his ears. He tries to extricate himself from Castiel on the couch in a clear attempt to avoid letting his erection brush against Castiel.

            "We're both males here, Dean," Castiel says with some asperity, raising an eyebrow but standing from the bed to give Dean some space. "I understand the phenomenon that's occurring."

            Dean flushes and avoids his eyes. "I've got morning breath," he mumbles.

            Something--some _things_ \--are conspiring to make Castiel think that this might be Dean's first time waking up with someone. Not necessarily his first time _sleeping_ with someone, but his first time just...sleeping with them. Which is...more thrilling than it should be, perhaps. But it also prompts Castiel give Dean some space. He goes to the kitchen, rubbing his hair and starting the coffee maker.

            Dean comes up beside him, close but not close enough to kiss. "You doing anything today?" There's still a hint of awkwardness in the way he curves his body, shoulders hunching slightly as he looks at the coffee maker behind Cas.

            Castiel cups a hand behind his elbow, still warm and imprinted with the pattern of the couch. "I was hoping so."

            Dean's eyes flick to his. His mouth flicks upward, a hint of the roguish Dean he's used to peeking out of the awkwardness. "Yeah?"

            Castiel moves until their mouths are inches apart. "Yeah."

            Dean just stares at him for a minute. This close, his green eyes almost look dark, or maybe that's just the swell of his pupils, wide and wanting. Then his eyelids fall over them, lashes sweeping his skin as he groans, pulling away. "Damn it."

            "What?"

            "I promised Bobby I'd come look at his van today." Dean shoves a hand through his hair. Looks up at Cas hopefully through his lashes. "I don't suppose you wanna come?"

            Cas pinches the hem of Dean's t-shirt between his fingers to pull him closer again. "I suppose I might be persuaded."

            Dean's face breaks into a grin as he lets Cas pull him down into a kiss.

 

\- o -

 

            Castiel isn't certain what Bobby thinks of him. He puts up with Castiel, certainly, and puts his less pleasant moods to good use in the drug assistance office, but Castiel doesn't think the man would find him a suitable romantic interest for Dean, whom he seems to view as a son.

            When Dean lets them into Bobby's house with a shouted "Hey, Bobby!" the man wheels into the dark living room from the kitchen, wearing his omnipresent baseball cap. He grunts when he sees Castiel standing just behind Dean, who throws Castiel off by saying, "I'm gonna grab my tools from the garage," and leaving the two of them alone in the living room.

            Bobby grunts at Cas again and wheels over to a desk in the corner. He starts riffling through the papers on it. Not wanting to seem nosy, Castiel turns to face the other wall of the room, sees a few picture frames along the mantle of the fireplace. He moves closer to look at them; one is of a much younger Bobby, in his omnipresent baseball cap, and a smiling woman; and another is of a bearded man leaning against the Impala with two young boys who are clearly Sam and Dean, perhaps ten and fourteen. Sam looks slightly unwilling, like he's been startled into a smile, while Dean is smiling widely, but there's something tight, trapped, about his eyes and the skin around them. It's the man with a hand on each of their shoulders Castiel scrutinizes the most closely, though, taking in the five o'clock shadow even darker than his own, the bags under his eyes, the rumpled state of the canvas jacket he wears.

            Bobby wheels up behind him. "The boys and their daddy."

            He doesn't have to say, _what are you boys getting up to?_ as Castiel looks away from the picture to look at him. His steady gaze says it, burning out at Cas from under his baseball cap like he can see the bruise sucked into the skin over Castiel's clavicle. Behind them, there's the sound of Dean tromping out onto the back porch with a clinking box of tools, the screen door clashing shut behind him.

            "C'mere," Bobby says, and wheels back toward his desk. "Sam tells me you fancy yourself a writer."

            He pulls something off the desktop. "I was wonderin'," he says, "what you'd think about a little written assignment."

 

\- o -

 

            Castiel joins Dean in the open-walled garage out back fifteen minutes later, holding the set of forms in his hands. Dean's just coming out from under Bobby's dark blue van, which is jacked up on struts; he's already got dark rings of sweat under his arms.

            Castiel holds up the papers. "Did you know about this?"

            Dean squints at them, rubbing a trickle of sweat from his forehead. "What is it?"

            "The directions for a grant essay." Castiel looks around, finds an old knee-high wooden stool near the workbench and drags it over as Dean lies down on a creeper and pushes himself back under Bobby's van. "For non-profit clinics providing care to medically underserved patients. _Applicants will be considered based on statistical evidence of care, an unannounced site visit, and an essay revolving around patients' experiences with the clinic's care_."

            Dean grunts; there's the sound of something clanking. "Bobby wants you to write the essay?"

            "Apparently."

            "Dude, awesome. We'll win for sure."

            Cas rolls his eyes at Dean's enthusiasm. "You haven't even read anything I've written."

            "Maybe this'll be my chance, then." There's a warmth in Dean's voice that makes Castiel squirm. And also want to grab the denim-clad leg sticking out from under the van and yank Dean out to kiss him. Because even if there's no way in hell he actually wants Dean to read something he's written, there's a tiny part of him that kind of actually does.

            Whatever he might have done or said next, though, is pre-empted by a sudden deafening bang from the porch: the screen door slamming shut. He looks up to see Jo bounding off the porch. "You guys started the party without me!"

            "Batten down the hatches, Cas, it's Hurricane Jo," Dean says from under the car as a shout comes from the house: "Joanna Beth, you couldn't'a closed that door nicely?"

            "What did I do to deserve this?" Jo demands of the sky. "Here it is a gorgeous Saturday morning and I'm stuck spending it with my mother and three old farts."

            "I seem to have been demoted from hot alien to geriatric flatulence," Cas remarks to Dean.

            "Not in my book," Dean says, just before Jo crawls under the car beside him. Cas isn't sure what she does, just that there's a clunk and a "dammit, Jo!" before Jo streaks back out from under the van, fast as a cat, and darts back inside the house, cackling.

            Dean pushes back out from under the van, scrabbling for a towel. His face is smeared with black oil. "I've gotta find that kid a boyfriend."

            "Perhaps two," Cas says. "One would be worn out too quickly."

            The screen door rattles again, and they both look up to see Ellen on the porch. "You doin' okay out here, Dean?"

            "I'd do better if you made Jo leave me alone," he replies petulantly.

            Ellen snorts and looks over at Cas. "Bobby said you might have somethin' to ask me, kiddo."

            Cas frowns in confusion until Ellen clears her throat and points at the papers in his hand.

            "Oh. _Oh_ ," he says. "Yes. I'll see you later, Dean."

            Dean smiles and pushes back under the van.

 

\- o -

 

            Castiel only practiced journalism for a year. And that had been in grade school, under Monsieur Balthazar's urging (in retrospect, it occurs to Castiel that the man had probably urged Castiel to join the school newspaper so that he would have someone to do the proofreading work so he wouldn't have to). But he recalls the 5 W's and H, as well as the rule of asking open-ended questions rather than close-ended ones--a method he has found works equally well in histories from patients--so once he and Ellen are settled at Bobby's kitchen table, he says, "Tell me about your life before you started coming to the clinic."

            Ellen takes a deep breath. Castiel feels a stab of worry--is she all right?--and opens his mouth to say that they can do this later, but she shakes her head. "I'm fine, sweetie."

            Castiel frowns. She doesn't look fine.

            Ellen pats his hand. "My husband had just died," she begins. "There was an accident in the factory he worked at. We didn't have a whole lot, him and I, we both lost our parents young. Just each other, and Jo, and when he died...well." She draws her hand back to swipe her wrist across her eyes. "There wasn't a lot of support for us to fall back on. Um." She wipes her eyes again, clearing her throat. "Me and Jo were on his insurance, and that went after a few months. I had enough of my headache medicine to get me through a while, but stress triggers them, I guess you know that, and boy, was I stressed." She gives a small laugh. "They kept coming, and I tried to make the medicine last, but I had to take it just to make it out of bed to get to work. So it ran out pretty fast.

            "Some days we didn't even leave the house, I hurt so bad. Just kept everything dark and quiet, I couldn't even take the sound of the TV." Ellen smiles sadly. "Jo was so good about keeping quiet it almost hurts to remember, you know?"

            Cas can picture it. A small blonde child crouching in the doorway watching her mother in the bed, or watching the TV on mute in the next room, not watching so much as listening with strained ears for any sound of her mother in the next room. He saw a glimpse of that child, the afternoon they came home and found Ellen on the couch, and Jo's face went young and scared.

            "But one day she got sick. Coughing real bad, fever and everything, and I was in the middle of one headaches, couldn't hardly move without throwing up, but her breathing sounded so bad I knew I had to take her somewhere. The doctor at the pediatrician's office took one look at me and asked when I was planning to take myself to the doctor. And when she found out I didn't have insurance, she told me she ran a free clinic and I was to march my ass down there as soon as I could walk."

            Castiel tilts his head curiously. "Who was she?"

            "Dr. Hawkins," Ellen says fondly. "She died a few years back, but she put that clinic together with her bare hands, Cas. You would've liked her."

            "I would have liked to meet her. So they took you at the clinic?"

            "Yep. They got me all fixed up, started on my meds again... and I started up the Roadhouse." Ellen goes quiet for a few moments. "I'll never forget what she did for me. In fact..." She gets up, going over to Bobby's desk. "It's why I started the carnival."

            Castiel frowns. "What carnival?"

            Ellen's head snaps around. "Boy, you been working at that clinic two months and you haven't heard about the carnival?"

            Castiel makes a _no, ma'am_ face. She snorts. After a moment, she finds what she was looking for in Bobby's desk and brings it over: a leather-bound photo album.

            "This was the first one," she says, flipping it open. The first page is a Polaroid photo; it shows a bunch of middle-aged men in the Roadhouse, posing along the counter behind huge stacks of hot dogs. Castiel recognizes some of them: Dr. Isaac, the clinic's medical director, Bobby, several other guys in flannel, and at the end, a woman in a no-nonsense denim jacket--Dr. Hawkins, he assumes. "Not a carnival yet, as you can see, but we had a hot dog eating contest, and everyone got sponsors to raise money. We made about a thousand dollars for the clinic."

            She turns the page. "The next year, Meg'd just started working as the volunteer coordinator, and she got the news involved." There's newspaper clippings with the photos this time; Cas leafs through them, fascinated. One of the newspaper clippings is a photo of a shyly smiling child getting a blue unicorn painted on her cheek. _Josephine Barnes, 8, has her face painted at a community carnival to benefit Lawrence's Helping Hands Clinic for the Working Uninsured_. He looks at the article accompanying it and blinks when he sees the byline. "Becky wrote this?"

            "Sure did. She was an intern at the newspaper back then. It's how she found out about us." Ellen taps the page with fierce pride. "We raised five thousand dollars that year. And it's only been going up ever since. Channel 13 News comes every year to cover it."

            Castiel turns the pages in the album, watching the people in them grow older. Eventually he reaches one with Sam and Dean in it. Dean's sitting at a table outside, looking miserable with part of a hot dog bun still sticking out of his mouth, and Sam's laughing behind him as Jo stands next to them both, posing like she's about to pour a bottle of ketchup onto Dean's hair.

            "He got third place," Ellen says fondly. "You don't get nothing for that but a complimentary bowel cleanse."

            Castiel snorts and turns to look up at her. "I didn't realize you did all this."

            "Every October. You gonna come join us for it this year? I've seen how you pack away burgers, I reckon you might be able to give Dr. Isaac a run for his money."

            Castiel traces the borders of the photo, taking in the happiness in their faces, even Dean's eyes crinkled at the corners like he was trying not to smile. "Maybe I will."

 

\- o -

 

            They don't end up leaving Bobby's until late afternoon. Ellen makes lunch for everyone, alternating between talking to Cas about how she became a patient at the clinic and yelling at Jo to ask Bobby to look over her college applications as she shucks corn on the cob and dices chicken. Dean kicks off his shoes when he comes inside for lunch, looking a little embarrassed when Jo sprays half a can of Glade on him right before he walks into the kitchen, shouting that he smells like mini-van ass. Cas flicks a piece of raw chicken fat at her that gets her right in the ear, which sends her shouting after him and gets the embarrassed expression off of Dean's face. It also sends Bobby's huge dog Rumsfeld panting into the kitchen, lunging for the piece of fat as it slides to the floor, and the kitchen becomes a ruckus of "Bobby, get your dog outta here!" " _No_ , you idjit mutt!" and "Mooom, I'm gonna get salmonella!"

            Despite Ellen's best efforts, Rumsfeld isn't exiled to the backyard, and he stays inside while they eat lunch, panting heavily on Dean's knee under the table. Cas knows because he spends most of lunch running his own socked foot against Dean's bare one under the same table, and at several points, some of Rumsfeld's drool lands on his own feet. (Dean laughs into his food at Cas's expression every time it happens.)

            So by the time they _finally_ get back to Dean's apartment that evening, it feels like Friday morning happened a week ago. Because Cas has at least seven days' worth of sexual frustration built up.

            Dean unlocks the door and holds it for Cas to go in ahead of him. Castiel pauses just inside, letting Dean come in and shut the door.

            He looks at Dean. Dean looks at him.

            Cas says, " _Now_?" His voice sounds plaintive even to him. And Dean ducks his head against his chest, to hide his smile, Cas thinks, and shuffles closer to hook his thumbs carefully through Castiel's belt loops.

            Cas steps forward against them and puts his own hands to the sides of Dean's head to lift it. To see the grin that Dean's biting his lip to keep hidden, and pull that lip between his own. As he grazes his teeth back and forth along it, he leans into Dean to toe off his loafers, then steps onto the back of Dean's old tennis shoes so that Dean can step out of them, which he does, stumbling, after Castiel makes an expectant sound into his mouth.

            "Cas...?" he begins in confusion, starting to pull back. But Castiel pulls his head down for another kiss. As he opens his mouth for Dean's eager tongue, he runs the sole of his bare foot up Dean's warm ankle, up under the hem of his jeans to the tendon running up the back of his heel, rubbing ever so lightly against the light hairs on Dean's calf.

            Dean breaks the kiss, huffing out laughter. "The hell're you doing down there, Cas?"

            "It's called foreplay, Dean, perhaps you've heard of it?"

            "Sure, it's just never involved feet before," Dean says in amusement, flexing his bare toes when Castiel puts his own over them, covering them with his insteps.

            "It's never involved me before," Castiel says, and Dean bursts into laughter. He throws his head back when he does it, and Castiel mouths a kiss onto his bared neck, making Dean snap his head back down so fast his chin nearly hits Cas in the face. "Shit! Sorry!"

            "Stay. Still," Cas bites out, and with a sheepish noise, Dean does, a flush travelling up his neck that Cas can feel as he returns his mouth to the faintly shadowed skin there. Dean didn't shave this morning, and he's got the beginning of a beard that scrapes deliciously against Castiel's lips, against the tip of his nose as he glides it from Dean's Adam's apple to the underside of his chin to pull him into a kiss again.

            "Cas," Dean murmurs. His hands are sliding under Castiel's shirt along his back, fingertips pressing warm and sweaty along the knob of his spine just above his jeans. Castiel pushes up against him, up on his toes on top of Dean's feet so that his skin drags upward under Dean's fingers, gets his fingertips under Castiel's waistband. Twin breaths punch out of them in unison, Dean's right against Castiel's hairline. Castiel's eyelids shut, his toes curling as heat spikes through him. He drops back onto his feet and off of Dean's, grabbing his shoulder and half pushing, half pulling him into the bedroom.

            "Horizontal," he says bluntly, pushing Dean up against the foot of the bed until Dean's scrambling backward onto it, sliding on his elbows across the comforter to lie against  the pillows as Castiel climbs on between his knees, eyes intent on his.

            Dean laughs at the stare. "Even during sex, Cas?" he says teasingly--or starts to, before Castiel licks into his mouth. He groans.

            "Especially during sex," Castiel murmurs into Dean's mouth, and sucks Dean's tongue into his own. 

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**rating:** M

 **warnings:** Sexual references. A little gore near the end.

 **notes:** To avoid confusion (or make it worse), in this fic, the Dean and Sam of Chuck's book series are named Abel and Cain. The Adam is his series is named Joseph. So Joseph is the one who has been left in the Cage with Michael and Lucifer.

 

****

**7.0**

_"...and that means comfort."_

\-- "Pac-Man Fever," 8.20

 

            June sweats toward July, humid and hot. The green and white crape myrtles that line the clinic's parking lot become sad, drooping things in the glaring sun, and Aidan brings an egg one afternoon to see if it will really fry on the pavement. Krissy dares him to eat it, which Meg puts a stop to because it'd be pretty bad publicity if one of their volunteers ended up in the hospital with salmonella from eating an egg off the pavement.

            Dean and Castiel's black cars become the joke of the clinic, the other volunteers used to coming out to the parking lot at the end of the day to see Dean and Castiel standing outside the Impala or the BMW with the doors open, waiting for the boiling hot interiors to cool off before attempting to get in. Meg tells them they'd be cooler if they took their shirts off, and Ruby tells them to stop being idiots and just leave the windows cracked during the day when they're inside working, but Dean's avoided doing that since the time as a kid when he accidentally left one of the back windows open and it rained. The whole car smelled like mildew for a month.

            Besides, he kind of likes leaning against the bumper with Cas, shooting the shit and enduring the good-natured ribs of their co-workers as they leave.

            Okay, he really likes it. Just like he really likes a lot of stuff about Cas. Like the way Cas looks at him from behind his glasses when he's on his laptop; or the way he digs his toes under Dean's legs when they're sitting at opposite ends of the couch studying; or the way he has sex with Dean slow and languid, like eating pie, his lips and tongue traveling slow and savoring up Dean's skin the same way Dean drags his mouth down a fork to get every bit of crust and filling. Or the way the sound of Dean's alarm is accompanied by a warm body shifting against his now, by Cas's drowsy grumble into the crook of his neck and a foot moving lazily between his own.

            Most mornings Cas wakes up the same way he had at the motel, the blanket pulled over his head, and he groans when Dean shoves him fully awake with a hand to his shoulder or a foot to his leg, and calls him an ass and tells him to go away, and Dean's grinning, feels like he never stops grinning. Because he's never had this before, hasn't had anything even vaguely like this since before Sammy left, and even then there wasn't the kind of attention he gets now, the bright blue eyes on him when they finally open, looking at him like Cas is considering whether there's time to devour Dean's mouth before they leave for the day.

            The feeling spills into the rest of the day, that same gaze on him whenever they're together throughout the day and the memory inside him when they're not, and it feels like no one could have missed the way that he's constantly grinning, that he's making excuses to push his shoulder against Cas's, brush against his arm, whenever he can.

            "I need parameters," Cas announces one afternoon as he drives them home. Dean's stomach sinks because that sounds kind of a lot like _I need space_ , but then Cas is saying, "What am I allowed to do to you in public?"

            " _To_ me?" he jokes with a lascivious grin, but Cas calls his bluff, reaches down across the gear shift to curl his hand around the inside of Dean's thigh and arches his patented _You are a foolish human but for some reason I feel affection for you_ eyebrow.

            "I'm not aware of whether you are 'out,' Dean," he says, the quotation marks audible in the sarcastic way he pronounces _out_.

            Dean swallows. He can feel the pulse in his thigh, wonders if Cas can, too. "I'm not--I mean--it's never really come up."

            "Your sexual orientation?"

            "Yea-s." His _yeah_ turns it into a _yes_ at the last second, Dean feeling as though this is a conversation that merits some formality. "I mean--ah." Because Cas's long index finger has just made a lazy sweep up and down his pant leg, somehow snagging through the loop of his scrub pants' drawstring.

            "What are you, Dean?"

            "Uh--" For a second Dean thinks Cas is asking if he's male or female, like he's been in reverse drag the whole time or something. "Human?"

            Cas gives him a puzzled look. They're at a red light, so there's time for them to eye each other for a moment, Cas with head tilted and Dean with forehead creased.

            Then Cas's face clears. He clarifies: "I meant gay or bisexual. Or, I suppose, straight and deceiving yourself about your preferences."

            "Oh. That." Dean's ears are definitely red. "I don't know, man, I don't think about it like that--I just--I like who I like, you know?'

            "Then I'm not the first male you've liked?"

            Dean's flush spreads, but he doesn't look away. "No."

            Cas nods. Dean might worry if he was disappointed or disgusted if not for his hand staying where it was, his thumb even beginning to rub absently along the soft scrub fabric. "But you're not comfortable with others knowing."

            Dean lets his head drop back against Cas's stupid BMW headrest, as much out of frustration at how close Cas's hand is to some really eager parts as because of the conversation they're having. "I... Look, it's just--God, Cas, you don't know how many fucking Nurse Dean jokes I put up with on a daily basis. People are gonna be all, _I knew he liked dick._ "

            Cas's hand stills. "You know that's nothing but ignorant gendering, don't you?"

            "Of course I know, Cas! What I'm saying is it pisses me off that they're going to think they're right!"

            "Who?" Cas says. "Who in your life that you care about would possibly think any differently of you if they knew?"

            Dean subsides at this, looking out the window. He twitches his knee to push Cas's hand off it. "It's just--Cas, you're only here for the summer. Me, I've--I've gotta be ready to spend my whole life here. With these people."

            "I understand what you're saying," Cas says. And he really does sound like he does; his brow is furrowed thoughtfully and everything.

            Then he pulls in a breath and glances over at Dean. "Would you be more comfortable if we stopped this, then? Before--"

            "What? No!" Dean bursts out, and his hand flies to Cas's, nearly dragging it back to his leg before he realizes what he's doing. "Fuck. You know how long it's been since I had sex?"

            He flushes the moment the words are out, because it's probably not a good idea to be that obvious about it. But there's no sign Cas thinks anything of it; he just reaches over and curves his hand around Dean's leg again, pressing gently with his fingertips.

            After a moment, Dean reaches down and entwines them with his own. He keeps his eyes studiously on the scenery passing by outside the window as he does it, and when Cas shakes with a silent laugh at his attempt to make this less of a chick-flick moment, the tips of his ears turn red.

            Cas doesn't quite manage to swallow his snort.

 

\- o -

 

            And _maybe_ Dean can't stop thinking about it. What Cas said. He's tried not to think about it, because jeez, like he doesn't have enough stress for five ulcers already, but he feels strangely relaxed as he lies on the couch one night with his head on Cas's leg, pretending to be brushing up on aortic regurgitation since they had a patient with it today but really thinking about _"What are you, Dean?"_

            He tilts his head back on Cas's leg. "Cas. In California, how're people about this stuff?"

            Cas looks down. He's got _We Need to Talk About Kevin_ balanced on his unoccupied knee and has been frowning at it for a while now. The remains of it linger in the crease between his dark brows. "This stuff?"

            Dean reaches a hand over his head to hook his hand under Cas's knee. He pushes his head back harder, until he's pretty sure he can feel Cas's cock starting to take interest in the friction through his flannel pants. "This stuff."

            Cas's frown becomes an _I know what you're doing_ smirk, and he flexes his hips minutely. Goosebumps climb up the back of Dean's neck, heat down to his groin. "More open than here, I suppose. But my social circles are not exactly wide, so I may not be the most accurate source."

            Dean pushes his shoulders into Cas's lap. "Sam says they're really open."

            Cas gets one of his secret smiles. Dean's pretty sure it means something like _Why did you ask me if you already knew the answer from Sam?_ but Cas just smoothes his fingers through Dean's hair, grazing his nails lightly against his scalp. "Are you planning to move to California?"

            Dean snorts. "What, hippie land?" He turns over in Cas's lap, pressing his nose into his inseam. "As if."

            "It's also the land of redwoods," Cas says. "And Arnold Schwarzenegger." He attempts the accent, which makes Dean burst into laughter and sit up.

            "Dude, you're so lame."

            "I'm also aroused," Cas says, and tosses his book onto the floor so he can crawl into Dean's lap. "And [according to our esteemed governor](http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/arnoldschw168118.html), the best activities for your health are pumping and humping."  


            Dean is nearly crying with laughter, shaking under Cas. "Wh--where do you get this stuff?"

            "Jo," Cas says, and Dean laughs harder. Cas grins down at him, looking proud with his achievement, then leans in and delicately licks away the tears leaking from Dean's eyes.

            Dean's breath catches, laughter dying abruptly. "Whoa, Cas."

            Cas pulls back. He murmurs, "Do you want me to stop?"

            "Wha--" Dean's breath catches as the hot tip of Cas's tongue traces his eyelid, so lightly Dean can swear he feels his blood throbbing in the delicate skin, against the deliberate pressure of Cas's tongue. " _Fuck_. Fuck, Cas."

            "Fuck," Cas enunciates back slowly, practically letter by letter, against Dean's brow. Dean arches back against the couch, clenches his hands hard in the fabric of Cas's jeans as he thrusts up, ineffectually.

            Cas sits back on his heels, brings his weight down on Dean. Grinds until they're both panting, Cas mouthing at Dean's jaw and Dean gritting his teeth to keep from gasping in Cas's ear as he digs his fingers into his back. Grinds until they're both going rigid, and falling bonelessly back against the couch cushions.

 

\- o -

 

            Castiel frowns at the encounter sheet that Krissy just dropped on the counter. "I don't recognize this patient," he murmurs to Ruby.

            Ruby glances at the sheet. "Oh, he's an old one," she said. "Used to be one of Doc Hawkins' patients, I think. We're gonna need a four-page on him."

            A four-page is the paperwork they give new patients to fill out in order to get their past medical, social, and family history before Missouri or Dean go into the room to see them. Cas grabs one from the stack on the counter and gets Missouri's cracked plastic clipboard from behind the Physician's Desktop Reference.

            He takes the four-page and pen out to the waiting room. "Mr. Devereaux?"

            "Would you look at that," grunts a craggy-looking old man in the corner. He's in a wheelchair, has one foot wrapped in heavy white gauze. "Someone who doesn't mutilate my name."

            "I can call you _Monsieur_ , if you'd like," Castiel offers, tucking the clipboard under his arm. He's not sure how he's going to get Devereaux's height and weight with him in a wheelchair. "Are you able to stand?"

            "Would I be in the wheelchair if I could, _gar_ çon?" Devereaux says sarcastically.  There's nothing French about his accent; it stays stubbornly Midwestern. "Show me where we're going."

            He wheels after Castiel into Missouri's side of the clinic, shoving himself in next to the BP monitor with far less dexterity than Bobby, which makes Castiel think his wheelchair-bound state may be a recent development.

            He leans over Devereaux to fasten the blood pressure cuff around his arm and has to purse his lips at the odor. The man smells unwashed, the sharp scent of underarm sweat and musty clothing. He's certainly not Castiel's first unpleasant-smelling patient at the clinic, but he is the worse-mannered one, glaring at Castiel as he pulls on the pale blue latex gloves to do Devereaux's Accucheck.

            "Did you eat today?"

            "No."

            Castiel holds his breath, tearing open the alcohol wipe. "What brings you here today?"

            Frank tugs a thick folded-up square of papers out of his front pocket with the hand Castiel isn't doing an Accucheck on. Castiel applies a Band-aid and documents the number on the progress note-- **178 FBG** \--before leading Devereaux to Room 3 and taking the paper from Devereaux. He unfolds the paper as the man wheels himself into the corner, cursing under his breath as he tries to get the wheelchair to turn so he's facing outward.

            "Can I help you?" Castiel offers, but gets a poisonous glare in return. He returns his attention pointedly to the papers, giving Devereaux some modicum of privacy. They're ER discharge papers for a Devereaux, Frank; diagnosis neuropathic ulcer on right plantar surface.

            He _thinks_ foot ulcers have to do with uncontrolled diabetes. Dean or Missouri will be able to tell him for sure. Castiel stands to go outside, then remembers the clipboard under his arms. "Monsieur Devereaux, we need a little more information from you. Would you mind filling this out?"

            The man eyes the clipboard like Castiel's trying to hand him a dead cat. "Why don't you just ask me what you need to know?"

            Castiel tilts his head. "Mr. Devereaux, are you literate?"

            "I can read just fine, numb nuts!" Devereaux snaps. "Seeing's another issue."

            Castiel hesitates in front of the door. He's not sure what to do. "Shall I read the forms out loud for you?"

            "Doesn't seem like we have any other option, do we?" Devereaux glares at him until he sits down, continues glaring as Castiel clears his throat and reads the first question. "In the past six months, have you experienced any weight loss or general fatigue?"

 

\- o -

           

            Devereaux doesn't tell him much, all terse one- or two-word answers, and when Castiel gets to the section for them to list his medications, he shoves a crumpled brown paper bag across the exam table at Castiel. It's full of orange pill bottles, a surprising amount of which Castiel recognizes the names on thanks to Dean and Missouri, and just as many that he doesn't. With any other patient, he'd ask what the medications were for--"Well, look at me teaching a college boy!" John Garland had said gleefully last week when Cas asked what his Synthroid was for--but Devereaux is still glaring at him, so Castiel keeps an awkward silence. He's grateful, twenty minutes later, finally to emerge from the close, beginning-to-smell quarters of the exam room.

            Dean's sitting in his swivel chair, legs sprawled lazily. He holds out his hand for the chart. "What d'we got?"

            Cas stands close behind the chair as Dean leafs through the ER discharge papers. "Foot ulcer."

            "Yeah?"

            "Yes." Cas watches Dean's thumb trace down the list of medications Devereaux is on. "He's rather unpleasant."

             Dean doesn't say anything, just pushes up out of his chair. Glances back at Cas. "You wanna come with?"

            Cas makes a face.

            "I'm gonna need a chaperone anyway," Dean says. "Guy's over fifty, Missouri'll want him to have a rectal exam to check for prostate cancer."

            He doesn't wait for Cas to answer, raps on the door twice and steps inside. Castiel slips in after him, easing the door shut behind him.

            "Mr. Devereaux, my name's Dean," Dean says, crossing the room immediately to offer Devereaux his hand. "I'm the NP student working with Missouri today. How are you doing, sir?"

            Devereaux eyes him beadily. "Not. Good."

            Dean nods, pulls the swivel stool over to sit. "They did a real number on you at the hospital, huh?"

            Devereaux snorts. "Charged me a real number, too."

            "They want you to go back to them for the follow-up wound care?" Dean nods at the man's bandaged foot.

            "Yeah, but they said I needed to come back here for my diabetes."

            "Understood. Were you on any diabetes medications before this?"

            Devereaux grunts. After a minute of Dean looking at him patiently, he says, "I stopped."

            "Stopped taking them?"

            "Yes."

            "Can I ask why?"

            "Couldn't afford it." Devereaux's looking at a poster on the wall now, like he's fascinated by HPV and cervical cancer.

            Dean nods. "I saw in your chart Dr. Hawkins had you on acarbose. Did that work well while you were taking it?"

            Devereaux shrugs. "She said it helped my A1C."

            Dean smiles. "Yeah, it probably did." He scoots forward and reaches down for Devereaux's unbandaged foot, glancing up at him for permission first. "I'm just gonna check for any nerve damage on this foot for us to record a baseline, okay? Tell me if you can feel this." He grabs one of the long-handled Q-tips from the counter and snaps it in half, touching one of the snapped ends to the bottom of Devereaux's foot. "Feel it?"

            Devereaux nods.

            "What about here?"

            Devereaux nods everywhere except for right under his big toe, and Dean sets his foot down carefully, scoots back over to the chart to doodle a quick foot and indicate the area. "Mr. Devereaux, how long've you been off your acarbose?"

            Devereaux putting his boot back on. "Guess a few years."

            "Did anything happen to your foot before you got the ulcer?"

            "Stepped on a splinter," Devereaux says. "Didn't notice it until it was infected." He gives a dark laugh. "That's how I ended up at the ER with a hole in my foot."

            Dean nods. "They probably already told you this there, so stop me if I'm just repeating things, but when your sugar's out of control, it damages the nerves in your feet. Were they feeling numb, maybe tingling?" Devereaux nods. "That's the neuropathy. The reason Dr. Hawkins had you on the acarbose was to try and keep that from happening." There's no judgment in his expression, just clear serious eyes. "Are you okay with us starting you on a new medication to get your blood sugar down if you can get it for free?"

            Devereaux gives him a _you must be stupid_ look. "Only reason I stopped was 'cause I couldn't afford it."

            Dean nods again. "Then we'll get you set up. We're going to keep a log of your blood sugar for a while first, but most likely you'll end up on one oral medication you can get for free at the grocery store and one injectable that we're gonna get through Bobby in the drug assistance office. You file taxes?"

            Devereaux grunts an affirmative.

            "Awesome." Dean writes something else in the chart. "Since this is your first time back at the clinic in a while, I'll be coming back in here with Missouri in a few minutes for a complete history and physical. In the meantime, I'm gonna go see when the soonest appointment with one of our eye doctors is to check the blood vessels in your eyes. Sometimes the blood sugar that messes with the nerves in your feet and legs can affect them, too, so we want to make sure that's not happening."

              "Retinopathy," Deveraux says. "I'm not an idiot, boy."

            "No sir, you aren't," Dean says with an emphatic laugh. Devereaux gives a sly little grin from under his smudged chunky black glasses. "Do you think you already have it?"

            "I know I do," Devereaux says. He looks at Cas. "What, you didn't tell him I can't see worth a damn?"

            "No sir," Castiel says. "He was too eager to come in and see you himself."

            Devereaux grins again, small and sudden. Castiel's gotten used to seeing this kind of thing happen with patients around Dean; they come in taut with fear and anxiety, leave the room loose with relief and reassurance.

            It leaves him feeling simultaneously proud and envious.

           

\- o -

 

            "Dean," he says that afternoon. Meg's old blue Mustang is parked in the only shady spot in the parking lot, as usual, and Dean's pelting it with seed pods from the crape myrtles as they wait for the BMW to air out. "How did you end up in nursing?"

            Dean's eyes flick toward him, and Castiel doesn't miss the way the first emotion that flashes through them is defensiveness. He remembers, _You don't know how many fucking Nurse Dean jokes I put up with_. "Why?"

            "I wish to know more about you."

            Dean snorts, pinches a seed pod in his fingers till the insides squeeze out. "I'm not that interesting, Cas."

            "We've already had this conversation," Cas says. "Interestingness is in the eye of the beholder."

            Dean flashes a grin. "I'm pretty sure interestingness isn't a real word."

            "Are you the writer in this relationship?" Cas says acerbically.

            Dean's grin widens. "No." He drops the seed pod, leans back on Cas's car. "I learned a lot of stuff taking care of my dad. We, uh, couldn't afford a home health aide, so I dropped out and did most of it." He shrugs, like it's a history he wants to displace from his shoulders. "Bobby had me challenge the nursing aide's test, and he got me this job at a nursing home while I started working on my LPN."

            "What is that?"

            "Basically? Glorified MA. Get paid a little better, but still not enough for insurance." He pauses. "That's how I ended up at the clinic."

            Cas remains silent, waiting.

            "It's the stupidest thing," Dean says. "I caught pneumonia from one of the patients at the nursing home. There weren't really any walk-in clinics around here yet, so Sam dragged me to the ER. And they always refer you for follow-up care, you know? Like hell could I afford it, but Benny was the nurse who worked me up when I was there, he told me about this place." He nods his head at the clinic's building. "I got in as a patient, and then I ended up doing my LPN externship here. And Bobby told me to keep going, you know, go on to RN, and I was gonna stop with that, 'cause I'd make enough for me'n Sam to get by. But Bobby kept riding my ass to keep going, you know, and by then I had Missouri riding me too, so I just..." He shrugs, "kept going."

            "So you never planned to do this," Cas says after a moment.

            Dean laughs. "Fuck no. I was gonna be a firefighter." Then his face creases; he pushes away from the BMW's hood. "Dude, is that what this is about? You don't have to be a doctor, Cas. You don't have to do anything you don't want to."

            Cas shrugs. Dean shoulder-bumps him and hands him one of the seed pods. Cas peels it open, tiny piece by tiny piece, as Dean leans against him and watches.

 

\- o-

 

_I'm not sure I agree with Dean, Alfie. Because not doing what I didn't want to was my philosophy, and now...I feel regret. I feel guilt._

            He looks down at the fat paperback sitting on the coffee table. The cover art has the same smudged quality as the other newer paperbacks, as though it's being seen through a rainy windshield. A small pale shape huddles in a chair as a dark figure stands in front of it, obscuring the lower and right borders of the cover. Across the top are embossed letters made to look like stitches coming out: **_Torn and Frayed_.**

 _He wrote it before you died_ , Cas types. _More than a year. But it shakes me. Because if it does mean something about us... Maybe Dad saw something in you that I hadn't bothered to look for._

            Castiel curls his toes inside his socks. They feel sweaty even though the AC is on; he thinks of Frank Devereaux with a splinter festering in his foot and not even knowing it was there.

 _I assumed you wished to follow our mother's path because you never complained. But what if I assumed that because as long as I could pretend that you were happy in what you were doing, I_ _wouldn't have to make sacrifices to correct it? So that I wouldn't feel obligated to follow Mother's plan myself if you wanted to pursue your own ambitions?_

            For the longest time when he was in junior high, Alfie wanted to be an archaeologist.

            What if he still had?

_I had no intention of going to medical school after I graduated. The MCAT, the pre-reqs, they were all to keep Mother placated until I earned my degree. And I never told you, but maybe you knew._

_Maybe you knew, and maybe that's why you stayed. Maybe all those years I spent resenting Mother for forcing her desires onto us, I was doing the same thing to you by not shouldering them myself._

_Alfie. I wish I had asked you what you wanted._

 

\- o -

 

            Cas is distracted. Has been for the past two days. Dean understands space, but he's also a little worried that it's not a good kind of distracted. Because Cas barely spoke on the drive home, staring out the window instead, and now that they're home, he's staring at his notebook with about the same level of _not there_ -ness.

            He squeezes down the insecure voice inside him that says _stop, let him be, Dean, you're going to make him mad_ and drops down onto Cas, straddling his hips.

            "What's the deal, dude? Now that you got into my pants you don't take me nice places anymore?"

            Cas's eyes focus slowly from the middle distance. He blinks at Dean. "Nice places?"

            "Far places," Dean amends, grinding slow. Cas's hands come up to his hips, looking like he doesn't even notice he's doing it. "Road trips, dude."

            Cas's mouth tugs into a smile. "Dean. You told me Thursday there would be zero sex this weekend because you need to study for your midterms next week."

            Dean opens his mouth to protest--

            "If you don't have time for sex, you don't have time for a road trip."

            Dude. It sucks when Cas is right.

            "You're a real pain in the ass sometimes, you know that?" Dean informs him. Then he smirks and grinds harder. Cas's hands tighten, probably more to tell Dean _no_ rather than _yes_ , but then he arches his neck to let Dean do what he will. Dean grins, mouths at Cas's prickly neck, and shifts his knees to get a better angle for friction. When he's finished, they're both spent and wet in their pajama pants.

            "Gross," Dean says, to which Cas gives him an exasperated _this was your idea, why are you complaining about it_ look. Dean grins and leans in close again to lick the exasperation from his mouth.

            "Perhaps," Cas begins as Dean climbs off the couch, making a face at the mess in his pajama pants, "we could take a road trip once you're done with your mid-terms."

            "Fuck yes. You mind if I choose again?"

            "Actually, I do mind." Cas reaches into his pocket and pulls out his cell phone. He thumbs it, pulling a message up on it, then hands it to Dean.

            Dean frowns down at it, confused. Then he sees the letters at the top spelling **Sam Winchester (Roommate)** and the text bubble that says, **what if you and dean come to nville for the 4th?**

            His face splits in a grin. "Are you serious?!" He looks up, and Cas is smiling back at him, gentle and affectionate and _there_ for the first time all day. But there's still something sad about his smile. Dean's not sure how to touch it, is afraid of moving, lest he jar it, like an abdomen with peritonitis, where any touch makes the patient hiss and flinch.

            "Cas?" he ventures. "You okay?"

            "I have to make a trip a few days before it," Cas says slowly. "To my home."

            Dean's immediately on his guard; that quick anticipation-sense of _something's wrong_ that he always feels stupid for slipping out of every time the next bad thing arrives, because it always does. "What's wrong?"

            Cas's eyes slide to the wall. He opens his mouth, then pauses and licks his lips and looks away. "Nothing," he says finally. "Just a family function for my brother's birthday."

            Dean studies him, trying to figure out what's bothering him so much about it. "Your dad going to be there?"

            A bitter laugh from Cas. "Who knows?" he murmurs after a moment.

            He looks at Dean again, and there's something almost pleading in his eyes for the barest second. Then it's gone, and he's clearing his throat and looking pointedly at Dean's pathophys textbook on the table.

            Dean huffs a sigh. " _Fine_. But I'm taking a shower first."

            He's kind of hoping Cas'll say, _Me too_ , and follow him in. But he stays behind on the couch, and Dean can't help but feel that familiar sense of failure creeping into his gut.

 

\- o -

 

            Castiel wakes when he hears Dean's phone alarm go off at six. But he pretends to keep sleeping, rolling over into his pillow as Dean slides out of bed with a grunt and shuts the bathroom door quietly to take his shower.

            He waits until after Dean's finished, until he's shut the bedroom door carefully behind him so he can rustle around in the kitchen making coffee and his lunch, and then until he hears the front door closing with a scrape of keys. Then Castiel climbs out of the bed, going into the bathroom that's still humid with the smell of Dean's shampoo and shaving cream, and brushing his teeth, avoiding his own eyes in the mirror.

            Dean's left two slices of toast out for him, the marmalade already spread on them to give it time to soak into the bread the way Castiel likes. He doesn't think he could keep anything down if he tried, right now, but the sight of that toast wrapped carefully in a paper towel sends a pang through him that he doesn't get even when he's coming undone inside Dean, around him. It's too much, it's more than he deserves, and as he locks the apartment door behind him and climbs into his car, he finds himself switching the radio from NPR to Dean's favorite FM station.

 

\- o -

 

            It's a nineteen-hour drive to Syracuse. Cas drives non-stop through Saturday, collapsing onto a musty-smelling bed in a hotel off I-71 in Ohio. He makes it to Syracuse in the afternoon, and when he turns into the cemetery, his mother's dark Volvo is parked there at the edge of the plot.

            He parks behind it and eases his door shut, careful not to disturb the reverent silence that fills the air. Then he walks toward the straight, dark silhouette standing in front of his brother's gravestone.

            Naomi must hear him coming, but she doesn't turn. Just stands there in her familiar crisp blouse and pant suit, staring down at the white marble lawn marker with its attached vase full of white chrysanthemums.

            Cas stops beside her. Stays there for a moment, shoulder brushing hers.

            But he can't bear to be standing over Alfie like that. Like his brother really is below him in the dirt. He crouches down the way he did when he was younger, crouches like he can be on his brother's level again so Alfie can reach up to wrap his arms around Castiel's neck and hold on.

            "Happy birthday, Alfie," he murmurs.

            A terrible sound escapes Naomi. Castiel turns to stand, but she's crouching next him in the dirt and crying, crying the way she didn't at the funeral or even afterward, once they were in their quiet house with everyone's sympathy casseroles and bouquets covering the kitchen counter.

            She cries, and Castiel remembers how the casket at the funeral was closed, how they wouldn't let him see the body when he got to Syracuse. Remembers how his mother was the one called in to identify the body after the accident, how she saw that alone, and maybe still sees it in her head.

            She cries, and Castiel leans into her to let her hold him, holds onto her as bones that feel smaller and more fragile than he remembers shake with sobs against his ribs.

            When she's done, she takes a deep breath. Lets go of him and pulls away to wipe a hand across her eyes.

            "Dinner," she says thickly. She pushes her sunglasses back on. "You can go back to wherever you've been after this, but you're eating dinner with me first."

            Castiel nods. They both get into their cars, her motioning to him through the rearview mirror to go first. He's not entirely familiar with the area, though it's only about half an hour out of Syracuse, but it only takes him a few minutes of driving down the two-lane road to find a suitable restaurant.

            "I would hardly call this suitable," is Naomi's first comment upon getting out of her car in the Biggerson's parking lot. Her voice is still a little thick from crying. "Honestly, Castiel."

            Castiel says nothing, merely shrugs one shoulder as Naomi pushes past him into the restaurant and strides to a booth, leaving the hostess to hurry after them with menus. He gives her an apologetic expression that she shyly returns before Naomi orders, " _Bottled_ water, please, for both of us, with clean glasses and a lemon slice for mine.

            "I won't ask where you've been," she continues brusquely to Castiel as the hostess leaves. "I don't imagine you'll tell me."

            She pauses, as if waiting to give him the opportunity to tell her, should he choose to surprise her. Then she continues: "Do you have enough money? Have you been exposed to any diseases? Pricked by any needles?"

            "I'm fine, Mother." He folds his napkin for a moment, pressing along the crease. "How's Dad?"

            Naomi dabs her eyes one last time beneath the sunglasses before taking them off. She folds them neatly with a "Thank you, give us a few more minutes, please," as the waitress drops off their drinks. "His agent informs me he is fine."

            The bitterness Castiel hears in her voice could be hers or his own. "Of course he is."

            "You know your father, Castiel." Naomi sets her sunglasses down beside her silverware. "When he's upset, he copes with it by writing."

            "And drinking."

            "And drinking," she says shortly. She picks up the menu. "Now, what's good here? I saw you eyeing those pancake things as we came in."

           

\- o -

 

            His mother spends most of the next hour talking about the new catheter line the company is developing, and Uncle Zachariah's latest article in The New England Journal of Medicine, and the bee hive Inias discovered hanging above Castiel's old bedroom window. It's as if she knows that Castiel would rather listen than speak. Or be interrogated.

            But at the end of the afternoon, when she's sliding into her car, he wonders if it wasn't all a display of power to show she doesn't _need_ to interrogate him, for she says, "Do say hello to your roommate for me when you get back. What's his name? Winchester?"

            Castiel gives her a Look for a moment. She smiles back, tilting her head to present her cheek for a kiss. He obliges, and she holds the back of his head for a moment, smelling of her familiar Chanel Noir and the polish Inias uses on her car upholstery.

            "Will you please call me more often?" she says as he pulls back. She hasn't put her sunglasses back on; her blue eyes search his like she's memorizing them. "I miss your voice, Castiel."

            He takes the hand she holds out to him. Squeezes it. She takes the motion like the agreement it is and releases him, pushing her sunglasses back on and turning to face her rearview mirror. He steps back and smiles faintly at her called "Be good!" as she pulls out of the parking space and then the lot.

 

 

 

 

\- o -

 

            Castiel hardly expects Dean to be waiting up for him, especially since he's probably running on fumes for sleep from cramming for his mid-terms. But when Castiel pushes his key carefully into the apartment door knob at 1 a.m. on Monday night, the door swings open to a living room with the lamp still on and Dean on the couch in his pajamas saying, "Go to bed, Sasquatch" into his phone.

            He tosses it onto the other end of the couch as Castiel closes the door behind him. "Hey there, stranger. How was the party?"

             "...fine." Castiel toes off his loafers and lets his bag fall to the floor next to their shoes, ignores the acid-reflux-like sensation rising from his stomach. "How was your weekend?"

            "Busy." Dean watches Castiel walk toward the couch, pulls his outstretched leg up to his chest to so Cas can sit down. "Boring."

            "Boring?" Castiel sits slowly on the cushion next to Dean. Lets his leg press against Dean's as he leans over to look at what Dean's studying in the textbook open on his lap.

            Dean closes it and stretches to put it down on the coffee table. Then he turns to face Castiel, hooking one socked foot between Castiel's to rub lightly up and down his shin. "Boring."

            Castiel opens his mouth obediently to Dean's kiss. Takes advantage of how lazy it is to lick his way into Dean's mouth and stroke along his tongue, the roof of his mouth. Dean hums and holds Castiel's hip more tightly, leaning back and letting Castiel follow him, sink onto him against the couch arm without letting their mouths pull apart. They make out like that, slow and deep, until Castiel finally pulls away, pushing his head into Dean's collarbone instead.

            "Sleep."

            "No." But it's a yawn, and after only a few minutes of Castiel rubbing steady circles into his side he's asleep, breath warm and steady against Castiel's hair.

 

 

 

            Castiel only means to stay there a little while longer, just long enough to absorb Dean's easy heartbeat into his own chest. But the next thing he knows, he's waking up to Dean's phone alarm going off somewhere near his feet and Dean shifting under him with a groan ("Ugh, my neck") and from there the morning becomes a blur of Dean cursing when he sees the time and yelling for Castiel to hurry up as he takes a quick shower that turns not so quick when it turns into their first one together, meant to save time but ending in slow patterns traced on soap-slick skin, tentative mouths and hands like doing this in the shower is somehow more daring, more forbidden, than what they do in the bed.

 

\- o -

 

            Lawrence Memorial is just around the corner from the clinic, so sometimes when Benny is working a shift, they go to the hospital cafeteria to eat lunch with him instead of eating in the break room. It's a short walk, maybe ten minutes, but sweltering, Castiel usually sweating in his undershirt after only a few minutes of walking. But it's well worth it because in the crowded hospital cafeteria, Dean will put his feet on top of Castiel's under the table, or worm his under Cas's, which he never does when they're in the clinic break room, which has three tables and Meg's commentary.

            They're just walking back through the clinic's front doors after lunch, Castiel smiling at Mrs. Tate at the front desk, when there's a "Holy shit!" from Meg's office.

            Castiel looks at Dean, who looks curious, but not curious enough to deal with Meg, then trots down the hallway because he is. He hears Dean sigh and follow him, wooden floor creaking under their feet.

            Meg's grabbing her office phone and swiveling away from her computer as Castiel leans into her doorway. "Bobby Singer, wheel your ass down here," she says, and slams the phone back down to shout, "Becky! Get in here!"

            Castiel and Dean exchange looks. "What's going on?" Dean demands.

            "We just found your leaked sex tape," Meg says sarcastically. "Honestly, Winchester, if you're going to make a sex tape at least invest in some decent editing."

            "An ass like this doesn't need editing," Dean retorts, which is when Becky and Bobby come in, the latter with a "I don't need to be hearin' about your ass, boy!"

            Dean slinks out of Bobby's way with a penitent look and glares at Meg, who smirks at him before taking something out of her printer and pushing it across her desk to Bobby and Becky. Dean squeezes around Castiel to look at it over Bobby's shoulder as the older man whistles. "What's it say?"

            Becky's eyes are huge. "Oh. My. God."

            "An anonymous donation to the tune of two hundred thousand dollars was just made to the clinic," Meg informs Dean and Castiel.

            "You know what we could do with that?" Becky exclaims. "That's, like, a whole extra NP salary for three years! We could take a hundred new patients! More, even!"

            She's looking at Dean, and so is Bobby, craning his head around.

            Meg leans back in her chair. "What're we all looking at Dean for?"

            "Obviously if we're going to get a new NP there's no one better," Becky answers. "He's about to graduate, he knows our patients, he knows our system--"

            Bobby's eying Dean shrewdly. Dean is chewing his lip, has his eyes on Castiel, who's studying the paper on Meg's desk. After a moment, Meg follows his gaze.

            "Let's not put our O-faces on just yet, Rosencrantz," she drawls. "We dunno if there's stipulations on what this money's going to be put toward, we have to see what the board says. Back to work, all of you."

            When Castiel doesn't move from his study of the printed e-mail, she plops her feet up on her desk, right on top of the paper. "That means you too, Clarence."

            He gives her an unimpressed face. She makes a shooing motion and he sighs, following Dean out of Meg's office down to Missouri's area.

            Dean's detached the rest of the afternoon, doing so little of his usual oral explanations for Castiel that Ruby asks if this means Cas is available now.

            "I am always available for you, Ruby," he tells her, just sincerely enough to make her scowl at him. It also pulls a snort out of Dean, which leaves Castiel feeling rather fond of Ruby.

            But when they get out to the parking lot that afternoon, nearly the last ones there besides Missouri and Meg as usual, Dean hesitates with his hand on the Impala's door handle. "Cas."

            Castiel looks over the car roof at him. "Dean."

            Dean doesn't grin like he usually does when Castiel parrots him. "Did you do that?"

            Castiel knows to what he's referring. But he says, "The donation?"

            "Yeah."

            "I--" He has wondered the same thing all day. "It's possible."

            Dean's eyes narrow. "What, you don't know?"

            "My mother rarely takes my thoughts into consideration, Dean." The statement isn't as bitter as it once would have been; is, instead, thoughtful.

            "I didn't ask for this." Dean's voice is getting an edge.

            "Nor did I."

            "Then why--"

            "You don't think you deserve it?" Castiel's voice comes out sharper than he intended.

            Dean turns away, pushing a hand through his hair. Paces to the car's trunk, then back. Finally looks back up at Castiel. "I'm just sick of owing people for stuff,"

            Castiel tilts his head. "You don't owe anyone for anything, Dean."

            Dean gives a trapped laugh. "I owe everyone for _everything_. You know how I ended up here? Bobby and Ellen knew my dad. I wouldn't even've gotten in as a patient here except Ellen made some sort of deal with Meg. Three hundred other people on the waiting list and a guy like me gets shuffled through the back way. And then doing my rotations here--" He stops himself, drags a hand down his face. "I just--I owe too many people already, Cas. I've got too much debt."

            "Dean..." Castiel's looking at him with such compassion that Dean can't really take it. He turns away again, opening the car door and grinding his palm against the hot metal on the roof.

            "I don't need help either, you know," he says defiantly. "I'm not some loser--I've got prospects."

            Castiel can't help snorting at that. He immediately regrets it when he sees the hurt that flashes across Dean's face.

            "Dean," he says quickly. He reaches across the top of the car to grab Dean's hand, ignoring the way the metal burns painful-hot against his forearm. "Dean, I'm not laughing at you, it's just the way you said it--" Dean's pulling his hand away, so Castiel holds on more tightly, fingers pushing his sweaty ones. "It sounded like something out of a Jane Austen novel. And don't even pretend you don't know what I'm talking about," he adds when Dean's hand relaxes slightly in his, "I saw when you had _Pride and Prejudice_ on last week."

            Dean's mouth turns up a little. "I may have sounded a little Charlotte Lucas-ish."

            "Not at all," Castiel says. "You're certainly an Elizabeth."

            "Fuck you, I'm Darcy."

            "With sideburns like those, I think only Sam could aspire to be Darcy," Castiel says lightly, and releases Dean's hand.

 

\- o -

 

            That night when Dean puts away his notes to go to bed, Castiel stays on the couch, claiming he wishes to write. Dean hasn't said much since their conversation in the parking, and Castiel thinks maybe he wants some space, tonight.

            But after fifteen minutes in which he doesn't touch his keyboard at all, just stares at the black TV screen thinking, there's a sound from behind him. He turns to see Dean standing in the bedroom doorway in his pajamas.

            "Are you coming or what?" he says gruffly.

            Castiel pushes off the couch and follows him into the bedroom. Still, they lie a little apart under the blankets before Castiel finally moves, rolls over to wrap his arm around Dean where he's lying on his side with his back to Cas.

            "I wouldn't have asked my mother to give the grant to the clinic to hire you," he says slowly into the neck of Dean's sleep shirt, "because I didn't think you wanted to continue in primary care."

            Dean doesn't exactly relax, but he's not as stiff, either. "What d'you think I want to do?"

            "I had formed the impression..." Castiel curls his fingers carefully near Dean's pounding heart, "that you were hoping to enter emergency medicine."

            Dean rolls over so that he's on his back under Castiel, looking up at him. Castiel shifts with his movement, letting his elbow brace him at Dean's side.

            Dean studies his face in the darkness. "How'd you know?"

            Castiel smiles slightly. "Dean. It was pretty obvious." He leans down, giving into the compulsion to press his mouth against Dean's nose, to the freckles on his skin. "Benny said toxic megacolon and you _glowed_."

            Dean starts laughing. Castiel grins against his forehead, and Dean's hands come up to tangle in his hair.

 

\- o -

_"You're safe now. I'm taking you home."_

            "Hey! Anyone here?"

            Castiel jerks up, automatically shoving _Torn and Frayed_ under a pile of Pfizer paperwork. "Yes! Here, how can I help--" He pauses, looking over the half door of Bobby's office, which Bobby has left him in charge of while he's in a staff meeting with Meg and Becky. "Mr. Devereaux."

            "Enough of that Mr. Devereaux crap. You can call me Frank." Devereaux shifts in his wheelchair. "What're you doing back here, shouldn't you be back there with Disney Princess?"

            "I go wherever I'm needed," Castiel says stiffly. "And please refrain from calling our volunteers names. Do you have your IRS forms?"

            Frank slides it over the ledge. He has to shift, and reach up a little in his wheelchair to do it, and Cas immediately opens the bottom half of the door, feeling bad for not thinking to do it sooner.

            "I'll just go make copies of this, please wait here a moment."

            The copy machine in Bobby's office is broken--Cas suspects Aidan had something to do with it--so he has to go use the one in the medical records office. When he returns with Devereaux's paperwork in a folder, Devereaux's not waiting in front of the door anymore. Cas gets a bad feeling, walks into Bobby's office and sees that Frank has wheeled himself inside. He's got _Torn and Frayed_ open in his hand.

            Castiel's fists clench.

            Frank glances back at him. "Wondered about your name." He waves the book. "These things didn't come out till after you were born, though."

            "Mr. Devereaux," Castiel says, "this area is only for volunteers. I have to ask you to leave."

            "I told you to call me Frank." He puts the book down in his lap, wheels closer to Castiel. "Which one's your favorite, then?"

            Castiel eyes the book in his hand. "Beg pardon?"

            "The brothers. Which one's your favorite?"

            Castiel's eyes narrow. He wishes to be contrary. "Neither. I favor Samandriel."

            Frank compresses his lips. Castiel half expects him to say something pithy, but all he does is push the book into Castiel's hands and roll himself out of the room. "Might be best if you just stop right now, then. Nothing good's on the table for Heaven's most adorable angel."

            "You don't know that," Castiel hears himself say.

            Frank gives him a look that's almost sympathetic. "Sure, kid. And Joseph's gonna be getting out of the Cage any time now."

            He wheels himself out of the room.

            And Castiel....thinks.

 

\- o -

 

            "Dean. Dean!"

            He blinks. Pam's in front of him, leaning close and shining her penlight in front of his face.

            He blinks again. "What?"

            "Well, his pupillary reflexes are intact," Pam comments. Lenore snorts where she's leaning against her Camry. "But no spontaneous speech, that's a four on the Glasgow scale."

            Dean blinks again, finally starting to come out of his stupor. "Holy shit. We're done."

            "For now," Lenore says dourly.

            Pam smacks her in the butt. "Who are you, Eeyore? We just finished five shitty-ass days of mid-terms, can't a girl be happy for like ten seconds?"

            "Touch my ass again and you'll only be _alive_ for ten seconds," Lenore says darkly, which makes Pam shout out a laugh and wrap her arms around Lenore from behind.

            "Whatever, you love me. Now let's go get drunk! Dean!" she shouts as she turns and sees Dean jogging toward the Impala. "Where're you going, kid? We have to celebrate!"

            Dean waves a hand over his head. "No can do, I've got plans!"

            "Do they involve sex?" Pam shouts.

            "So much sex!" Dean shouts back, and throws her and Lenore a final wave as he slides into the driver's seat. He sees them collapsing into each another with laughter in his rearview mirror, and he grins as he accelerates out of the parking lot because _fuck_ does it feel good to be done.

            It feels even better to see Cas waiting in the Roadhouse's doorway when he pulls up. Cas had promised to work for Ellen till Dean finished his last exam at six, so he's still wearing his black apron and black collared shirt, open at the collar. Dean kind of really wishes there weren't a bunch of people shooting the shit out in the parking lot because he'd really like to get his mouth on the V of tan Cas-skin left exposed by that collar.

            Cas trots over, pulling open the Impala's door and sliding inside. He turns to pull the door shut behind him, and Dean gets a look at the back of his shirt, covered in floury handprints. He bursts into laughter. "Jo?"

            "Jo," Cas confirms with a sour look, and okay, _that_ Dean can't resist kissing. Cas leans into it enthusiastically, hands coming up to Dean's face, tilting it and opening his own mouth in an invitation for Dean to lick his way inside. Cas's lips taste of salt, of the peanuts Ellen keeps on the bar, and yeah, this is gonna be the best vacation ever.

 

\- o -

 

            Castiel pulls out a notebook and book light after about an hour or so on the road. Dean glances over.

            "What, I'm not good enough company for you?" he teases.

            Castiel looks up with gleaming eyes. "I think I've made it quite clear what enjoyable company you are."

            Dean preens a bit at that, licking his lip without realizing. Castiel notices, though, and reaches a hand up to thumb across the corner of Dean's mouth, across his bottom lip. He presses in, just gently, and Dean parts his lips, closes them around Castiel's skin. Castiel's breath hitches, and Dean smirks around his thumb, licks it wickedly once before releasing it.

            "Wanna pull over?" he murmurs. But they can't, and Castiel knows it, because there's sex and then there's sex by the side of the road, and one is a good way to lose your practitioner license before you even have it--indecent exposure and all that. Castiel smiles instead, pushing his knee closer to Dean's, and goes back to writing, thumb still tingling from the suction of Dean's mouth.

            "You didn't write this much when you first came," Dean comments after a while.

            "I didn't have much to write about," Castiel says without looking up. "Now, I find I have almost too many ideas."

            Dean looks smug. "I'm just that inspiring, huh?"

            "I think I have Frank Devereaux to thank, actually."

            Dean does a double-take. "What?"

            " _Drive_ , Dean," Castiel says, gently pushing his face back toward the road.

            "But-- _Devereaux_?"

            "And Jo."

            Dean's eyebrows fly up. "Now I'm really scared. What're you writing over there, softcore porn?"

            "You'd like that, wouldn't you," Castiel murmurs, and Dean grins because yes, he totally would.

 

\- o -

 

            Cas had programmed the address of a hotel into the GPS he insisted on bringing along. But when they pull onto the exit for it around eleven, another establishment catches his attention.

            "Dean," he murmurs. His eyes are dark, gleaming with the reflection of the motel's neon sign.

            "Holy shit." Dean's eyes are big in the darkness. "I thought these places only existed in movies. Or, you know, your dad's books."

            Castiel winces. "Please don't bring up my father when we're discussing checking into a pay-by-the-hour motel."

            "Oh, is that what we're discussing? Sorry, I missed the _checking into it_ part."

            Castiel smirks. "There's no need for sarcasm."

            Dean glances over at him. Heaves a long-suffering sigh. "Fine. But you're paying. No way am I letting this show up on my credit card."

            Castiel considers his mother's reaction to seeing this show up on _his_ credit card.

            Dean's brow creases as he pulls into the parking lot. "Dude. Did you just cackle?" 

            Castiel's smirk widens. "I'll be right back."

           

\- o -

 

            They grin at each other like little kids as they grab their duffels from the Impala a few minutes later and creep to the door at the end of the breezeway. Cas sits down on the (only) bed in the room, folding his hands primly in his lap and giving Dean a look that makes him stuff a fist in his mouth to keep from bursting into laughter.

            When he's gotten himself under control, he takes his hand away from his mouth and looks around. He keeps his duffel bag in his hand instead of setting it down, because shit, if he was worried about the bacteria on surfaces in regular motel rooms, how much worse has it gotta be in a place like this? Sure, it looks normal, if a bit shabby, with its boring framed landscapes on the wall and the ugly shower curtain visible through the bathroom door, but...

            _Thud. Thud. Thud thud thud!_ comes from the wall behind the bed.

            Dean's eyes fly to Cas. He feels torn between hysterical laughter and horror, kind of like that first time Cas was at the clinic and Ruby called him on his sex hair. Because someone is getting banged _right next to them._

            Cas just has that smugly amused look that never fails to send a bolt of heat to Dean's cock. "Dean," he says in his gravelliest voice, and holds out his hand.

            Dean goes to it, dropping his bag on the carpet and climbing onto the bed to straddle Cas's hips. The bedcover is some slippery material that his jeans slide on, and he ends up landing maybe a little more heavily in Cas's lap than he intended. Cas's hands come up to his waist, thumbs rucking under his t-shirt in warm taunting strokes as he parts Dean's lips with his own--

            _Thud thud thud MOAAAN._

            Dean bursts into laughter in Cas's mouth. He can't do it. He thought he could, but he can't have sex with Cas listening to people fucking next door.

            Cas smiles around Dean's bottom lip, sucking even as Dean shakes with laughter. After a moment, though, when it becomes clear Dean's not going to be able to stop laughing, he pulls back, dragging off Dean's lip with a pop. "Food?"

            Dean grins at him, lip red and swollen. "Food."

            They end up at some 24-hour waffle palace, gorging on bacon drowned in maple syrup. The waitress gives them as many glasses of milk as they want because she says it's dated to expire the next day, which makes Cas frown in worry, so Dean drinks his glasses instead.  

            "Guess you'll never grow as tall as me, Novak."

            "It's Novak-Shurley, Winchester."

            And Dean nearly chokes on his mouthful of milk because for a second he thinks Cas is saying _Novak-Shurley-Winchester_ , and wow. Um. He's so distracted he doesn't notice Cas stealing his last piece of bacon until it's disappearing into his mouth.

            "Dude! Not okay!"

            Castiel chews serenely. "You know how much I love meat, Dean."

            Dean chokes. Cas makes that cackling sound again.

            Afterward, they go out to the Impala in the empty parking lot, bursting with food and warmth in the darkness. Dean glances over at Cas in the passenger's seat and then, tentatively, leans over and slants his mouth across his.

            Cas opens immediately, and he tastes like breakfast, which is fucking awesome. Then he's sliding across the bench seat onto Dean, following his mouth and rubbing his nose into the space beside Dean's, sliding their lips together hot and sticky. He gets Dean's upper lip between his and drags his bottom teeth up the inside of it, which weirds Dean out at the same time it turns him on, but that's pretty much his relationship with Cas in general, so.

            "Hotel?" Cas breathes against his mouth.

            "Hotel," Dean breathes back.

 

\- o -

 

            When they pull into the parking lot of the law firm Sam's been working at around three o'clock the next afternoon, Sam's standing next a shiny Jaguar that has a man in a suit sitting on the hood.

            "What the--?" begins Dean. But Sam's turning, no doubt at the unmistakable growl of the Impala's engine, and breaking into a grin.

            "Dean!"

            "Stupid kid's gonna get run over," Dean mutters as Sam breaks into a run toward them. "Dammit, Sammy, I'm trying to park!" he shouts through the open window.

            Sam grins, throwing up his hands in a _whatever, Dean_ gesture, and steps back to make room for Dean to pull into a parking spot.

            Once Dean kills the Impala's ignition, Castiel tinkers with his seatbelt long enough to let Dean get out of the car first and get swept into a Sam Hug. Then he gets out of the car himself, only to have the Sam Hug transferred to him. "Cas! You came!"

            "I didn't trust Dean to use the GPS on his own," he says, which earns him an ear flick from Dean and a shout of laughter from Sam. He tugs Castiel closer under his arm, flashing him a quick, searching look as if he's trying to gauge whether Castiel is okay. Castiel meets his eyes, giving a slight nod, and something in Sam's expression loosens. He hugs Castiel affectionately once more before turning around to jerk his head toward the man on the Jaguar. "C'mere, Gabriel wanted to meet you guys."

            "I had no such desire," the man says flippantly, hopping off the car. On his feet, he's surprisingly short, has to rock back on his heels and crane his head back to look up at them, but the way he carries himself doesn't suggest an ounce of awareness of this fact. "Castiel Novak."

            It's not many people who call him that, rather than Castiel Novak-Shurley, Dean and his laziness being the obvious exception. Castiel is surprised to hear it from his father's divorce lawyer, of all people. He peers at him.

            "What?" Gabriel shrugs. "You want to pretend your dad doesn't exist, right?"

            Cas's lips tighten. He stares Gabriel down as Dean and Sam shoot them puzzled glances.

            "I think he's wasting his time, personally," Gabriel says with another shrug, "but here." He pulls a large manila folder out of his suit jacket and holds it out to Cas.

            Cas knows what it is. His father keeps his manuscripts in thick folders like this, replacing the cheap metal prongs with tape when they inevitably break off. "No, thank you."

            Gabriel snorts and tosses it onto the ground at Cas's feet. Cas doesn't move to pick it up. Dean looks back and forth between them and sighs, bends to pick it up and hand it to Cas. Cas takes it with his lips pursing harder at the smirk that flashes across Gabriel's face and doesn't thank Dean.

            "What could I possibly want with this," he says.

            Gabriel gives him an _are you shitting me?_ glance. "Not my place to figure out your messed-up family dynamics, Castiel. I'm just the messenger. Unfortunately."

            His face changes then, becomes slick and charming. "Now, Sammy! Introduce me to your strapping brother!"

            But Sam's looking at Cas. "What was that all about?" he demands of Gabriel.

            "Attorney-client privilege, Sam," Gabriel reminds him.

            Sam looks frustrated, drawing up to his considerable full height. "Gabriel--"

            Dean clears his throat and steps between them, sticking out his hand. "Dean Winchester."

            Gabriel takes it with a smile. "Gabriel Milton. You've got quite the brother here, Dean. What did you feed him for breakfast growing up, the Encyclopedia Britannica?"

            Dean flashes his patient-charming smile. "Only after he cut his teeth."

            Gabriel's returning smirk is sly and approving. "Well." He crosses around to the driver's door of the Jaguar. "I just wanted to meet you and let you know Sam's doing real well around here. I'm glad I stole him from Azazel, if you know what I mean."

            He slides into his car and shuts the door before Dean can do much with that statement. The rev of his engine is the only warning they get before he's peeling back in reverse and zooming out of the parking lot.

            Sam makes a Bitch Face. "He's such a drama queen."

            "No wonder you get along," Dean retorts automatically.

            Sam turns the Bitch Face on him, then looks at Cas. "What was that about?"

            Cas is already tossing the manila envelope into the backseat foot well. "Nothing. I'm hungry, let's go get food."

            "Oh my God, Dean's infected you," Sam says, and Dean slaps him upside the head, wrestles him into the backseat of the Impala as Sam shouts protests and tells Dean to stop messing up his hair.

            "Oh, before we have the inevitable freak-out," Sam says from the back seat. "Jo already told me you guys are dating."

            Dean nearly drives off the side of the road. Cas chokes on the tepid Sprite he has left over from lunch.

            "I told you so you _wouldn't_ freak out," Sam says irritably.

            "Uh, well, you fail," Dean says. His eyes flick uncertainly toward Cas; Castiel meets them and shakes his head minutely: _I didn't tell anyone_. "How the fuck does she even know?"

            Cas can't resist. "Perhaps she was hiding under the bed."

            Dean goes paper-white.

            "For Heaven's sake, Dean, I was joking." Cas rolls his eyes. "Sam, I appreciate your mature reception of this topic, but as you can tell, it makes your brother uncomfortable."

            "Which is part of my job description," Sam says. "Which is why I'm going to remind you guys that you should be using protection--"

            "Oh my _God_ , Sam!" Dean bursts out. "Would you shut up? God, I'm going to kill Jo!"

            "Yeah, because I wouldn't have been able to tell you guys were sleeping together anyway," Sam says. "He's got shotgun, Dean."

            "Seriously, Sam? Someone getting shotgun means I'm sleeping with them? _You_ get shotgun!"

            "Exactly! Yet here I am, in the backseat. Ergo ipso facto, you're sleeping with Cas."

            "Sam, I don't think that's actually the correct usage of those phrases," Cas says lowly.

            "Shut up, Cas, I'm winning," Sam says. "Also, Dean, may I remind you, he is my _roommate_. This is a clear violation of the brother code."

            Only then does Castiel realize what Sam is trying to do, which is get Dean so riled up over Sam being an annoying little brother that he forgets to be scared about the exposure of his sexuality. And it reminds him all over how dearly he loves Sam, an affection that he's allowed to become somewhat eclipsed by his overwhelming attraction to Dean these past few weeks. He gives Sam a smile through the rearview mirror that Sam returns with a wink.

            Dean is still distracted: "We don't have a fucking brother code, Sam."

            "You're right. We have a no fucking my roommate code."

            "You're such a bitch!"

 

\- o -

 

            They go out for Mexican, where they're joined by Sam's friend/summer roommate Zack, whose Foghorn shirt immediately endears him to Dean. "Nice shirt, man."

            "Hey, thanks! We can't all be preps like Winchester over here."

            "I'm not a prep," Sam says from his side of the booth, next to Cas.

            "Dude, Sam, you wear polos to class," Zack says. "That's pretty much the definition of prep."

            "In his defense, he hasn't graduated to boater shoes yet," Castiel says.

            "Thank God for small mercies," Zack says with an eye roll, and they all laugh. Dean laughs perhaps a little more heartily than the rest of them, for he senses that this is Stanford humor, or maybe just college-in-general humor, and he's not quite part of it.

             "So Dean, dude," Zack says. "It's nice to meet you, man. Any bro of Sam's is a bro of mine. How'd you guys meet?"

            "No, Zack." Sam elbows him. "He's, like, my literal brother. Biologically."

            "Oh." Zack blinks. " _Oh_! Fuck, Sam, who hit you with the ugly stick?"

            Sam looks prissily offended. "The hell, man? I'm good-looking." He looks at Dean for confirmation, but Dean's too busy choking on a nacho with laughter.

            "Nah, it's okay, dude," Zack says. "There's always gonna be the family member who's just not as good-looking. In my family it's Becky."

            "Yeah, yeah, so says Zack Galifinakis's long-lost twin brother." A pretty blonde woman slides into the booth next to Zack and punches him in the shoulder. "Thanks for answering my texts, dumbass."

            "Ow!" Zack whines, as Sam says in relief, "Becky!"

            "It took me forever to find parking, sorry." Becky holds out a hand to Cas. "I'm Rebecca, Zack's sister."

            "Cas," Cas says. "You go by Becky?"

            "Yup. And you must be Dean." Becky clasps Dean's hand, her grip confident. "Nice to meet you guys. Would be nicer without this guy around--" She shoves Zack's shoulder again, "but I guess we can't have everything."  
            "Hey, thanks so much for letting us stay with you guys this weekend," Dean says. "It's really great of you."

            "Whatever, man, the pleasure's all ours," Zack says. "I'd be spending it all alone with Becky otherwise. Talk about lame."

            "Can you spike his drink with something, please?" Becky asks the waitress that appears with their tray of drinks. "Like a laxative or something."  
            Their table explodes with laughter.

 

\- o -

 

            Becky and Zack are exhausting. They're friendly in that open, effortless way that leaves even Castiel smiling more often than not, and the party doesn't end when they get to their three-story house. Zack starts up a video game on the huge plasma screen in the basement and Becky, upon hearing that Cas bartends ("clumsily," he warns her), insists on being mixed a Sea Breeze in the kitchen. After a while, once Dean's died one too many times in _Halo_ , Zack switches the TV to a Will Smith marathon on TNT, and they settle in with popcorn and sodas, Dean sneaking a piece of popcorn into Sam's glass of Diet Coke every time he looks away to say something to one of the others.

            The marathon is a bit of a shock to Castiel's system. He hasn't seen any cable TV since before the funeral, and it makes him quiet and introspective, thinking of the manila folder in Dean's car. Dean seems to notice, sitting close along his side on the sectional and pressing his leg against Castiel's. It's more than Castiel expected, Dean showing this sort of affection and support in front of the others. He wants to squeeze his hand but isn't sure if that would be too much, more than Dean is willing to show, or give.

            That night, when a yawning Zack leads them upstairs to show them the guest rooms for them to stay in, Dean follows Castiel into his instead of waiting to be shown his own. His ears are pink as he mumbles, "Thanks, man," to Zack, who blinks in a little surprise but just as quickly moves on, yawning, "Night," and heading back downstairs.

            It's a bigger step than anyone else could possibly know, and Castiel kisses Dean softly for it, curling his hands in his hair and pressing their foreheads together as he struggles with the emotions quaking inside him. He feels like Pangaea, shuddering along its fault lines into separate pieces. Dean holds onto him, grips handfuls of the back of Castiel's shirt, and they move apart only long enough to change, coming back together under the soft bed linens.

            Castiel wants never to leave this spot beside Dean, inhaling the familiar smell of his deodorant and the cheap trial shampoo left in the shower of the pay-by-the-hour motel. And maybe that's why, once Dean's breathing has slowed into slumber, he extricates himself gently and goes to take his laptop from his bag.

 

\- o -

 

            _The moment Samandriel's eyes opened, he heard the screams. Souls, countless souls, screaming._

_But they weren't just the screams of human souls. There were louder roars, angry ones, like parents shouting at each other in the next room._

_His stomach rolled. Remembering this sound, remembering the sick desperation for peace, please-brothers-stop-fighting. He curled up with his wings around his vessel's body, breathing past the feeling of them wrenching his Grace toward them when they caught his scent, calling brother **BROTHER** brOtHeR--_

_He didn't want to go to them. Just wanted peace, and silence, and to forget the look on his brother's face as he drove his blade into Samandriel's vessel, into his Grace. Wanted not to think about why he was here, in Hell...was this where angels went when they died? Was this the fate their Father had left them to?_

_Was this where Samandriel was sent for trying to tell Castiel the truth?_

_He wasn't sure how long he sat there before he noticed the quieter sounds. Something smaller than the whispers, the growls, the orders to **COME HERE, SAMANDRIEL.** It drew him forward, crawling through the tunnels of hands that reached through cell bars as he passed, combing through his feathers with bloody fingers. His wings moldered as he crawled, left a viscous trail of grime and red and feathers heavy with gore. By the time he reached the Cage he was not a angel or even a vessel, just a greasy skeleton with charred bits of flesh clinging to his, his talus and his fibula falling away as he reached through the crackling, smoking, icy bars._

_"COME," Michael whispered, and as his breath wafted toward Samandriel there was a memory of sitting on a sunbeam, of being told the story of a fish that learned to walk._

_"TO ME," soothed Lucifer, and in his eyes burned the promise of a Heaven where they would no longer feel empty, where the corners of the clouds would ring with angel-song once more._

_But Samandriel listened to the third voice. No words, just crying. The scent of icy-hot metal and old coffee, the touch of warm arms and soft fabric washed too many times._

_The metal inside his head throbbed._

_And burst free._

 

 

 

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

**rating:** M

 **warnings:** Medical stuff. Alcohol abuse. 

 **notes:** To avoid confusion (or make it worse), in this fic, the Dean and Sam of Chuck's book series are named Abel and Cain. The Adam is his series is named Joseph. So Joseph is the one who has been left in the Cage with Michael and Lucifer.

****

**8.0**

_"I could have pulled him out. I just don't understand why he didn't try harder."_

\-- "A Little Slice of Kevin," 8.07

 

            When he wakes up the next morning, sprawled on his stomach with his arm hanging over the side where he shoved his laptop under the bed, he feels like someone is watching him.

            He looks over. Dean is lying on his back, eyes open, forearm slung across his forehead as he stares at the ceiling. It's still early, early enough that only the barest hint of gray light is coming through the blinds.

            Dean's eyes slide to the side, meeting Castiel's. They stare at each other for a moment. The awareness of being together somewhere that isn't the cocoon of Dean's apartment seems to drift around them like dust motes in the air, to settle slowly into the small spaces separating their waists, their knees, feeling warm and heavy.

            He closes his eyes, isn't sure how long they drift in that perfect quiet before Dean shifts. "Cas."

            "Mmm."

             "In your dad's books..."

            Castiel opens his eyes. Pushes his head around on the pillow to face Dean completely, his pulse skipping up. But Dean looks more thoughtful than anything else, tracing circles on the comforter with his finger, so Castiel calms down, scoots closer to Dean to slide a hand up onto his pectoral muscle, firm through his thin gray t-shirt.

            Dean shifts the arm he has bent over his head, tilts his chin to look down at Castiel. "The angel he named after you. Him and the older brother. Did you ever wonder...?"

            Castiel shifts. Begins to pull his hand away, but Dean touches his wrist. Castiel curls his fingers instead, dragging his fingernails in the worn-thin fabric of his t-shirt.

            "I've never come out to him," he says finally. "Or my mother, or...my brother." He falls quiet, and feels Dean's hand slide up to cover his, calloused and warm. "When I began to notice that Abel and Castiel, in the books--I can't even begin to tell you the terror I felt."

            Dean strokes his thumb down the edge of Castiel's palm. Back and forth, back and forth.  

            "It felt like he was telling me he knew what I was. How I felt. And the fact that nothing ever comes--came--of it. It feels as though he's saying he doesn't approve of it. That it wasn't okay." He takes his hand from Dean and rolls over. "Stupid, perhaps."

            Dean's quiet for a moment. Then he says, "Not stupid."

            Castiel turns onto his side to look at him.

            "There was this kid, when I was in first grade." Dean's looking at the ceiling again. "Aaron Bass. I was so gone on him, man. I don't even remember why, probably 'cause he always let me have his Fritos at lunch. It wasn't like we did anything, you know? But I remember it was Valentine's Day and I had this special one for him, or whatever and when my dad asked me why, I said, 'cause me and Aaron are getting married when we grow up."

            He takes a breath. Stops tracing the circle in the comforter to flatten his palm against it instead.

            "You know that part in the book with the shtriga?" he says after a moment. "When Abel says his dad looked at him different after he wasn't there to protect his brother? It felt like that. My dad always looked at me different, after that."

            That was what had hurt, more than the lashed-out words, the snapped _"I don't ever want to hear you say shit like that again, you hear me?"_ After a few years, the event sank out of memory, a thing John never brought up and Dean pretended to have forgotten, but every once in a while, when he was talking to a tech at the hospital or a cashier at the store, he could feel his dad's gaze on him, narrow and suspicious. It was like living within the coil of a boa constrictor, trapped, suffocated. Afraid to move.

            He takes a deep breath and turns his head on the pillow to look at Cas.

            Cas watches him back for a moment, eyes dark. Then he says, "Roll over."

            Dean does. Cas straddles his back, sitting on his ass, and digs the heels of his palms under Dean's shoulder blades. It feels fucking good, feels even better as he grinds down against Dean, shoves up his shirt and flattens himself flush against Dean's back to mouth down the knobs of his spine, push his fingertips along the ridges of Dean's ribs.

            "There's nothing wrong with you," he breathes onto Dean's wet skin, laves the words into it with his tongue. He thrusts his hips once, shallowly, and Dean catches his breath, automatically bucking back against him. Cas bites around one knob of spine. "Nothing except your abysmal taste in reality TV."

            Dean laughs even as he pushes up on his elbows to move against the rhythm Cas is setting, rocking against the sheets. "I'm not the one who texts in my votes every week."

            "Silence," Cas says, biting down again, but his bite is smile-shaped, and Dean laughs again, reaches back with one arm to squeeze his thigh. Cas swipes his tongue across the skin between his teeth, and Dean's laugh catches, becomes a sigh. He pushes up on his elbow, arching his spine into Cas's mouth. "Fuck, Cas."

            Cas wriggles a hand under him, finding Dean and squeezing. Dean bucks, and Cas shoves against him one more time, and they both stiffen and sigh, Dean's fingernails digging into Cas's sigh.

            "Fuck yes," Dean breathes as he flops back into his stomach, too sated even to grimace at the mess in his boxers. Cas makes a wordless sound of agreement and slides just far enough off of him to let him breathe freely, keeping one leg tangled between Dean's. Dean hooks their ankles and rubs his other foot up and down Cas's calf once, twice, before nuzzling his face into his pillow and falling back asleep.

 

\- o -

 

            "Dude, you guys are not seriously going to lie around here in your pajamas on Independence Day," Zack complains as he shuffles into the living room the next morning and finds them sprawled out in front of a rerun of _Live! with Kelly and Michael_. "Really?"

            Becky and Dean are eating Rocky Road ice cream from coffee mugs, a bottle of butterscotch syrup at Dean's feet and one of strawberry syrup at Becky's. "This is all a holiday really needs, in my opinion," she comments, and Dean agrees with a nod, licking his spoon. Zack groans and retreats into the kitchen. Dean's starting to understand why he and Sam are friends.

            Sam and Castiel are watching Becky and Dean in disgust. Sam has yogurt and Cas has Raisin Bran. "Dean, you're so going to be diabetic."

            "Shut up, bitch," Dean retorts around his spoon.

            Becky rolls off the couch onto the floor. "Zack, bring me the chocolate syrup!" she yells.

            "No!" he yells back.

            "ZAAAAAAACK. PLEEEEEAAAASE."

            A jumbo-sized marshmallow flies out of the kitchen doorway and bounces off her head. "That's all you're getting!"

            Becky rubs her head and considers the marshmallow on the carpet. "It felt stale." She looks at Dean. "You think?"

            " _No_ ," Sam says, reaching out his freakishly long leg and putting his foot over the marshmallow. "It was on the floor, Becky, you can't eat it."

            Cas makes a sound of agreement. Dean and Becky roll their eyes. Zack re-emerges from the kitchen, holding a gas station Big Gulp cup that appears to be full of coffee, if the steam and smell are any indication.

            "Oh, classy," Becky says. "I guess you can take the guy out of college but you can't take college out of the guy."

            Zack takes a sip. "I'm sensing some jealousy in the Force." He sits down next to Cas. "No, but seriously, guys, what are we doing today?"

            As if in answer, thunder rumbles outside. A moment later, there's a flash of lightning, and the TV screen flickers out, along with the lamp next to Dean.

            They all blink in the dim gloomy light coming through the bay window.

            "Good thing you finished off the ice cream," Cas says.

 

\- o -

 

            There's not much to do the rest of the day but paint each other's toe nails (Becky and Cas; red and silver, respectively) and play board games. They find out that Zack kicks ass at Uno, Dean's a Sorry prodigy, and Cas plays Twister like a yoga instructor.

            Which is sexier than anything should be at eleven o'clock in the morning, Dean thinks as he tries to reach a green dot with his socked foot. "You know, this'd be way easier if I was wearing scrubs."

            "Or if you weren't wearing such tight pants," Sam says.

            "Hey, look at that, the spinner's telling me to put my left foot up your ass," Dean retorts, and shoves Sam's butt with his foot. The Sasquatch goes down in a tangle of limbs and people.

            Only Cas manages to keep his balance, leaving him smirking down at Dean with his hands still on two red dots and feet on a green and yellow. Dean grins back from underneath him and blows in his face, leaving Cas blinking rapidly and totally missing the hand Dean shoves under his shirt to tickle him. He collapses with a shout of surprise and laughter, knees hitting the mat as Dean shouts in triumph.

 

\- o -

 

            "Sammy's got some pretty good taste in friends," Dean concedes as they hit the highway Sunday morning, weighed down with leftover burgers and steak fries from the Fourth of July spread they'd ended up eating in Zack's SUV in the pounding rain, unable to see the fireworks they'd driven to watch.

            "I'm included in that assessment, I hope?"

            "Now you're fishing," Dean says. "How did you put it? Oh, yeah--'I think I've made it clear what enjoyable company you are.'"

            "You have," Cas murmurs, and maybe Dean, like him, is remembering sharing the room at Zack and Becky's, because he colors a little and looks sheepish.

            They drive in silence for a while, Cas stretching out his legs and pushing the seat back a little to watch Dean's profile as he fiddles with the radio stations. Eventually, though, Dean says, "So. We gonna talk about that elephant in the back seat?"

            "Sam is no longer in the back seat, Dean."

            "Hardy har har," Dean says. "You know what I'm talking about, Cas."

            Cas shifts in his seat. "I prefer to put off dealing with bad things."

            "Who says it's bad?"

            Castiel closes his eyes instead of answering, and Dean sighs. But he worms his hand under Cas's on the leather seat anyways, rubbing his knuckles gently with his thumb as the engine purrs under them.

            With every tight turn or quick deceleration, though, he hears the manila folder sliding around in the foot well behind him.

 

\- o -

 

            Dean has class on campus Monday afternoon, so he beelines for the shower once they get back from Nashville, already tugging off his shirts as he heads for the bedroom. Castiel drops his laptop bag on the couch and looks around, eyes landing on his suitcase in the corner and the gleaming book cover barely visible through the open zipper.

            He picks his laptop bag back up. Heads back onto the breezeway, taking the apartment steps two at a time as he takes out his phone to text Dean that he's heading to the library.

            The story he started typing in Nashville has been burning like a white space in his brain. It feels like it's lighting up the places that have been left dark and cobwebbed for months now, ever since he picked up the phone and heard his mother's voice say that Alfie had been in a car accident. This is how he holds onto his brother; this is how he keeps him. Samandriel is dead in the story Chuck is writing, but he doesn't have to be in Castiel's.

 

\- o -

 

_If you free Joseph from the Cage...it fits, both younger brothers abandoned by the older ones--you by me, and Joseph by Cain and Abel. There's common ground to be found between you, and in a way, you become his older brother, his guardian, seeking to return him to Heaven, to the peace he deserves after centuries of torture._

The question, then, is how they get to Heaven. Samandriel couldn't possibly have come through the demon king's torture unscathed, much less through tearing a human soul from his two Archangel brothers in the Cage. His Grace is a torn and frayed thing in Castiel's conception; his wings are as well, kept concealed and out of sight the same way Alfie's body was, after the accident, and it makes Castiel think of buried things, graves and soil. _Ghouls. Joseph knows about the portal in Purgatory that leads to Hell._ That makes sense, doesn't it? Whether through some horrific two-way connection between himself and the ghoul that was slain and went to Purgatory while wearing his form or through his time with Lucifer in the Cage, Joseph knows about the portal, can lead Samandriel to it so that they can escape.

            But that's only if he wants to escape. Only if he trusts Samandriel not to betray him.

            And why would he? How could he trust anyone, again, after the ways his brothers abandoned him? Betrayed him, left him to the angels' mercy?

            Castiel finds himself thinking of Orpheus and Eurydice, the musician so desperate to guide his love back to life. For the first time he wonders if Eurydice wanted to come back, wonders if her disappearance doesn't mean something more than the warning not to look back. If it means, instead, that Orpheus didn't know Eurydice as well as he thought he did, that the things she wanted and the things he did weren't the same thing, the person she was and the person he thought she was weren't the same individual.

            He sits forward. _But maybe that, in itself, is still a warning not to look back? A warning that if you look back, you'll find that the thing you remembered isn't there anymore, at least not the way you remembered it._ He thinks of the vampire in _Blood Brother_ , his return to his human wife only to find her transformed. _The vampire says what he loved was snuffed out, but Andrea's words suggest something different--"We can have the life we always wanted."_ They insinuate that even when she was human, she had the thirst and the greed she has now; it's only in her lover's memory that she became idealized, gilded by grief and yearning.

            Castiel types faster. Thinks of the Axis Mundi and revisiting old memories, happy ones, tasting them turn to ash in your mouth because you discover they aren't happy, maybe were never happy, a brother left behind so that you could be free, a love decaying even before fire burnt it to dust. Brothers and mothers and fathers and all the things he wants to escape, all the things he wants to remember, and this is what he wanted, to be seized by a thought and dragged along in its wake, a comet's tail so white-hot that everything else is burned away.

            He types until the library closes. Then he goes out to his car and types some more.

 

\- o -

 

             "Ugh, dude." Pam pushes through the auditorium doors, making a face at the muggy evening air. "Is it just me, or do I feel more depressed every time we come here?"

            "We're not taking the boards for practically half a year," Lenore grumps as she, Pam, and Dean head toward the parking lot. "Why are they riding our asses about finding jobs already?"

            "Someone's suspiciously quiet over there." Pam shoulder-bumps Dean. "Bet you've already got feelers out, huh, Winchester?"

            Dean shrugs. "Maybe a few."

            Lenore takes off her Scrunchie so she can shoot it at him.

            "Dude!" he protests. "I've got like six years of student loans to start paying off, I don't have time to start looking for a job after graduation."

            "You sure?" Pam says with a smirk. "Maybe your new sugar daddy'll take care of all that debt."

            Dean glares at her. She laughs and shoots Lenore's Scrunchie at him again. "Lighten up, Flannel-Face, I was joking."

            Dean glares more thunderously.

            Pam laughs again and slaps his butt on the way to her car. Lenore gives him a long-suffering eye-roll and trots to keep up; she and Pam car-pool on class days. Dean watches to make sure they get into their car safely, shooting Pam the bird when she sends him a saucy wave through her window, then heads for his own car. He was nearly late to class, so his spot is all the way in the back of the lot, where the security guards on their golf carts don't even bother to patrol. 

            He'd just as soon have not had the long walk, though; it gives him too much time to think. He hadn't been the only one in the auditorium fidgeting when Dr. Lee started telling them they should be starting to search out job placement in earnest now, but he thinks he might have been one of the only ones who's actually already _applied_ and was still fidgeting nervously. Because he's applied to fifteen hospitals so far, and the only reply he's gotten thus far is from a hospital in Montana, thanking him for his application.

            It has his stomach in knots, picturing the very real possibility that years from now Sammy'll be pacing around a courtroom in a snazzy suit wowing the pants of jurors and Cas'll be striding around in a white coat diagnosing people with nothing but the intensity of his solemn X-ray stare, and Dean'll still be in his scrubs wiping people's asses because no hospital was stupid enough to hire a high school drop-out as a nurse practitioner for its patients.

 

\- o -

 

                Cas is in the living room when he gets home, typing rapidly on his computer in the dark, as if he couldn't be bothered to get up and turn on the lamp when the sun set. He glances up when Dean comes in and switches on the lamp on the side table, but his eyes are distant behind his glasses, more grazing across Dean than actually landing on him before he makes a vague sound of acknowledgement and returns to typing. And it's stupid for Dean to miss the intent creeper stare Cas usually fixes on him, but he does, and as he moves quietly around the counter to the fridge, he watches from the corner of his eye to see if Cas looks away from his computer at all.

            He doesn't.

            And it's stupid for Dean to resent that. _Something_ 's up with Cas, he knows that. Something that has him staring into space more intently and more unhappily than Dean has seen in all the time Cas has been here. What he doesn't know is if it's his place to push Cas about it. He gets these moments, sometimes, when he remembers Cas is a college kid, and a rich kid, and even if rich college kids have feelings, too, like Cas's tangled-up family angst, they're still rich college kids, and sleeping with someone, for them, doesn't necessarily mean they want a relationship. Spending the weekend with Zack and Becky reminded him of that fact; having the awkward morning-after routine in the kitchen with the chick Zack had met at the Fourth party he'd gone to without them underlined it. Just because you have sex with someone doesn't mean they want a relationship. If it did, Cas might have invited Dean with him to his brother's birthday party.

            But he didn't. And Dean...needs to remember that.

            He takes some leftover chili out of the fridge, decides to eat it cold so the beeping of the microwave doesn't disturb Cas. He doesn't want his chewing to disturb him, either, so he takes the bowl into his room with him and eats at his desk, staring at the handwritten Coma Scale chart on the wall without seeing it. He's too tired to study when he's done, tells himself he'll wake up early to get some done instead, and crawls under the covers. But he's still awake two hours later when Cas brushes his teeth and turns off the light and slides under the covers.

            Dean stares into the darkness, feeling it press against his eyeballs. He stays on his side, shoulder digging into the mattress. "Cas?"

            "Mmm?"

            "What were you writing about?"

            Cas shifts on the bed behind him. Dean's hit with a sudden memory, a myth Sam had to do a project on in high school, some mortal chick sharing a bed with a god every night without being able to see him. The simultaneous senses of terror and anticipation. "Heaven."

            Dean rolls over. Tries to make out Cas's silhouette. "Yeah?"

            Cas's voice is amused. "Would I lie to you?"

            "I just don't see how Frank Devereaux and Jo make you think of heaven, dude."

            "Are you still on about that?" Cas's hand alights on Dean's hip, rubbing his thumb back and forth. "It's not a pleasant Heaven, if that makes you feel better."

            Dean stays quiet.

            "I read _Torn and Frayed_ last week," Cas says finally. "I read it, and it made me think...everything's already ruined. It's all broken already, it's just when you turn back and look at it in hindsight that you see the cracks."

            Dean doesn't say anything. Cas's hand falls still, and even in the darkness Dean feels his gaze sliding into that distant place again. Away from Dean, like a blanket being pulled from him and leaving cold air behind as he lets out a small laugh. "I'm not making any sense, am I?"

            "No, you--" Dean's words tangle in his mouth. "You are."

            Cas gives a little snort, disbelieving and self-contemptuous.

            "Cas--" Dean pushes up on his elbow. Wishes he could see Cas in the darkness, then is just as quickly grateful that he can't. "I know what you mean. Really."

            Cas doesn't say anything. Dean sighs and lowers himself alongside him, slides his hand up Cas's neck until he finds his messy hair and pushes his fingers into it. He puts his forehead to Cas's. "Really," he repeats.

            Cas's heart is still pounding a fast rhythm against Dean's ribcage. His hand comes up to Dean's side, slides across it to splay against his back. "Dean," he says lowly, and there's something pleading in his voice.

            Dean shifts until his head is next to Cas's instead of against it. _This is a two-way street._ He doesn't know how he found a guy who dislikes talking about things that matter even more than he does, but here they are.

            "My dad drank," he begins. "A lot. And I always thought, you know, it was something that started after Mom died. Because he couldn't deal with it.

            "But a while back, we found this old home video in some of Bobby's stuff. And it was of me and Sam, Sammy was learning to walk, you know, practicing walking from Mom to me. And Mom's just cooing over him as he waddles toward me, but then you can hear the door opening and Mom putting down the camera and then they're fighting about him being drunk." The slamming door, the clinking bottle, Mom shouting, _I can't do this anymore, John!_ "It's all there on the video, but I don't remember it. I never noticed it."

            All those nights Dad came home dazed and stumbling after Mom's funeral, Dean thought it was because she was gone. And he'd tried to fix that, tried to be Mom for Dad. Crept out of his bed at night when he heard Dad come in, and gave to the kitchen and made him a sandwich to eat as he breathed heavily at the table, given him water and the child-proof bottle of Motrin when he groaned and gripped his head; sat and held his hand when he started crying at the kitchen table, snot and booze and sweat. They were like nightmares, those nights, half-asleep, held fast in the wooden chair at the kitchen table by his dad's sweaty hand around his wrist, the things that spilled out of him. _You don't know, you don't know what it was like_ , the steaming jungle, the way a man smelled when he's just had his skull blown off, the way a dead body felt under your feet when you scrambled over it to safety except _there's no safety, there's no such thing as safe, Dean, do you understand?_ The shake, the bone-grinding squeeze of his wrist. _Do you understand me?!_

            He usually fell asleep after that, or threw up, and Dean would creep back to his and Sam's room biting his lip and holding his arm and the next day he'd wear a jacket to hide the bruise.

            "It messed him up," Dean says. "The war. And that's not his fault, but I--"

            He makes himself stop. Lets his muscles relax again, feeling how they've gone tense under Cas's hand.

            He pushes away, up onto his elbows and away from Cas. "Anyway." His voice is forcedly light. "I'm, uh. Not even sure what we were talking about anymore."

            "Heaven," Cas says. And his eyes are on Dean; just barely visible now that Dean's eyes have adjusted to the dark, and he'd wanted that stare before, but now he's pulling away from it, turning onto his back and trying to resist the desire to turn onto his side, expose less of himself to Cas because he's just exposed way too much. He doesn't quite manage it, shifting slightly onto his side with as casual an air as possible, but Cas wraps his arms around him from behind, rests his chin in the cradle between Dean's back and shoulder. His heart is beating almost as hard as Dean's.

            Eventually, as Cas's heart rate slows, Dean relaxes. Puts one of his hands over Cas's.

            "You know, there's this thing called sleep hygiene," he says after a while. "The only things you're supposed to do in bed are sex and sleep."

            Cas's eyelashes brush his earlobe. "Is that a suggestion?"

            _Yes_. Dean turns over in Cas's arms, shimmying down on the sheets a little, aware of what it means for his coping mechanisms that sex actually makes him feel less naked than anything else. "I'll get my shirt off if you get my pants."

            "Deal," Cas says, and goes to work on the double-knotted string as Dean wriggles out of his shirt.

 

\- o -

 

            He goes up to the long-term ICU after his shift the next night. It's a quiet floor, most of the time, and at one in the morning it's dead, nothing but the quiet beep of monitors and the occasional whisper of paper at the nurses' station.

            Lenore's on shift tonight; she glances up as the elevator door closes behind Dean. "Hey, sunshine."

            "Hey," he says. "All quiet on the Western front?"

            "On all the other fronts, too." She studies him. "You here for something, or just decompressing?"

            "Uh," he says. "The second one."

            Lenore nods. Her mom died in this ward, like Dean's dad, and Dean doesn't know how she does it, working here night after night. But he's grateful to have someone who doesn't care that he comes up here and just...breathes, sometimes.

            201 was Dad's room, that last time. There's a woman in there now, asleep with a CPAP mask strapped over her creased face, and Dean knows it's not healthy to stand here, and listen to the quiet sound of the monitors and respirators, knows that if Bobby knew about it he'd kick Dean's ass, or maybe worse just give him that sad look, the one that says, _boy, something is broken in you._

            Because it's sick that this grounds Dean, that standing outside someone's hospital room and feeling helpless and useless makes him feel _better_. Because more than half the time, these days, he feels like he's pretending to be something he's not, someone who actually knows what he's doing, someone who can actually help people, when inside he's still the sixteen-year-old standing next to his dad's hospital bed listening to the doctor tell him about Boerhaave syndrome and comorbidities and cirrhosis and having no fucking idea what he's talking about. Just staring at him stupidly and nodding, saying, "Okay. Okay. Okay," as Sam's hand sits in his, so slick with nervous sweat that he keeps having to grab it again, having to interlock their fingers to remind himself to listen, _listen_ , because inside his head he's still reliving that moment, opening the kitchen door and finding Dad on the floor in a puddle of whiskey and barf and blood oh God oh God oh God.

            Standing outside the hospital room afterward, sliding down the wall to sit against the hallway floor because Dad sent them out of the room so he could talk to the doctor alone, trying to swallow his guts back down because they keep crowding up into his mouth, and Sam's anxious pizza breath in his face isn't helping, _Dean, Dean, what's going to happen? Dean, is Dad dying?_ Coming back into the room to the doctor's tight-lipped face, to Dad's decision not to be put on the transplant list, to Dad's decision to _die_.

            Slowly.

            Because after that hospital visit there's another one. " _Pneumonia secondary to your father's recent Boerhaave episode_."

            And another one after that. " _Fluid in his lungs as a complication of his cirrhosis_."

            And another. " _Mr. Winchester, what do you know about hospice care?"_

            "No. Stayin' home." Dad had been slurring pretty badly by then, a combination of the pain meds and the swollen salivary glands in his cheeks that the doctors said was part of the liver failure. He'd twisted his head away when the doctors tried to reason with him, glaring blearily at the wall instead, and Dean had done the same when the doctors turned to look at him: put his hands in his pockets and looked down at his shoes.

            And afterward he'd taken his dad home with the home health aide brochures and lists of supplies they'd need, and that was when he dropped out, started sleeping on the floor next to Dad's bed so he could get up when Dad started retching in the middle of the night, when he needed to go to the bathroom, when he started crying, from pain or memory or the encephalopathy the doctors had talked about, Dean didn't know. His days became bleary and sour, broken only by driving Sam to school in the morning and picking him up at night, and the weekly visits Bobby made to keep an eye on John so Dean could take Sam for groceries. Bobby's shouting when he thought Dean and Sam weren't there to hear. "It's one thing to decide you don't wanna live, and it's another to make your son wipe your ass while you do it!"

            Weakness, confusion, trouble talking, memory loss. Sam got used to the sounds in the night, Dad's wet coughing, the sound of vomit splashing, Dean's soft voice, the clink of medications against the IV pole.

            Seven months.

            Then there was the funeral that Bobby took care of, and the foreclosure notice on the front door, and the spare room at Bobby's, and not much else for a long time after that, just throwing up and being comforted by the smell of it because it helped him pretend Dad was still there. Sometimes, somewhere, Sam nagging him to go back to school, please, Dean, please, and then there was the night a social worker came and took Sam away before Bobby bulldozed through enough paperwork and shouted at enough people to get him back, and that was when Dean forced himself out of the bed. That was when he started working.

            And it's how he ended up here, the same place he's always been, just with a badge, this time.

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

**rating:** M

 **warnings:** References to abduction, murder, and (unrelated) sex.

 **disclaimer:** Opinions espoused here are not necessarily those of the author.

 **notes:** AMCAS is the American Medical College Application Service.

 

****

**9.0**

_"And now something wonderful is going to happen, for me and for you._

_I want you to live this new life to the fullest."_

\-- "Sacrifice," 8.23.

 

            Castiel has thought deliberately about who to interview next for the clinic's grant essay, if anyone. Normally he's a single point-of-view sort of writer, preferring the simultaneously more limited and more profound scope enabled by viewing a story from only one character's perspective. But the story of Samandriel and Joseph has become a narrative shared between their two perspectives, and Castiel is willing to let the new style extend into his non-fictional writing.

            Originally, he thought that the essay might be stronger with a single patient's story, one "character" garnering more effective empathy from the readers than if they have to spread it across three patient-characters. But when Frank Devereaux starts wheeling himself into the clinic to work with Bobby in the drug assistance office every afternoon, Castiel thinks he'd be stupid to ignore the possibility presented by the catankerous old man.

            He waits until a Thursday after Frank has been working at the clinic for a few weeks. Then he tells Ruby he'll be right back and heads down to Bobby's office, where he raps smartly on the doorjamb. Bobby and Frank are both sitting in front of the folder-strewn counter in their respective wheelchairs, and they look up in unison at Castiel.

            "I need to speak to Frank."

            "Take a number," Frank grunts, pushing the folder in front of him aside. He pulls another from a pile next to Bobby's computer. Bobby goes, "Hey!" and Frank makes a "heh" sound.

            Castiel clears his throat. "Frank, I wished to see whether you would be amenable to joining me for coffee this afternoon."

            Frank squints at Castiel.

            "Or whatever it is that you customarily drink," Castiel modifies.

            "Virgin's blood," Bobby mutters.

            Frank shoots him a dirty look from behind his smudged glasses. Then he looks back at Castiel. "What the hell for?"

            "I would prefer to discuss that privately." That's not exactly necessary, as Bobby was the one who charged Castiel with this assignment in the first place, but he's fairly certain Frank will refuse just to be contrary if Castiel asks him in front of Bobby.

            Frank grunts. "Fine. But I'm driving."

 

\- o -

 

            Frank's van smells only marginally better than he had on his first day at the clinic, but he keeps the windows open as he drives himself and Castiel to a bubble tea shop in downtown Lawrence and parks in a handicapped spot against the curb. Castiel waits as Frank maneuvers himself into his wheelchair, not daring to offer help after the venomous warning glare Frank shot his way.

            Inside, the bubble tea shop is an explosion of bright colors and aquariums mounted in every wall, tropical fish flitting through streams of bubbles from the aquarium filters. It's hardly the sort of place Castiel would have imagined Frank to frequent, but as the older man wheels up to the counter, the cashier says, "Hey, Frank! The usual?"

            "I'm gonna go with berry pomegranate this time," Frank says.

            Castiel is studying the menu mounted above the counter. "The green tea, please," he tells the cashier, then looks at Frank. "Is this an appropriate indulgence considering your diabetes?"

            Frank gives him a Look. "You really think you should be antagonizing the guy you're trying to ask a favor from?"

            "No one said anything about asking a favor."

            "Your _eyes_ are sayin' it," Frank retorts. He wheels over to a table near the window looking out on the street, pushes a chair out of the way to make room for himself. "Spill."

            Castiel sits across from him, using his foot to push the discarded chair over to another table. "You must be looking forward to receiving the shoes Missouri ordered." With Bobby's help, they had managed to get a medical footwear company to donate a pair of heel wedge shoes that would distribute Frank's weight differently on his feet when he walked. They would offload the pressure on his heels and improve his ulcers' healing. Castiel hadn't been impressed by the pictures of the clumsy-looking shoes, but Missouri swore by them.

            "Yeah, I can't wait to look like a ballerina," Frank says with an eye roll. He'd been about as impressed as Castiel. "Quit trying to beat around the bush, kid."

            Castiel leans back when the waitress brings them their teas, Frank's a pale pink and Castiel's almost the exact color of Dean's eyes. He pauses a moment to admire it, then looks at Frank.

            "I'm writing a grant essay for the clinic. The essay involves sharing the stories of some of the clinic's patients in order to illustrate the clinic's impact on the community."

            Frank takes a long draught through his straw. "So you want my sob story."

            Castiel's mind flashes back to Dean's dark bedroom, the hard beat of his heart against Castiel's chest. He shakes his head. "A 'sob story' is not how I intend to present it."

            Frank studies him for another minute. Then he sighs and pushes back in his chair. "All right. S'pose I owe it to 'em."

            Castiel purses his lips. "You owe no one anything, Frank. Helping Hands Clinic helps for the sake of helping, not out of an expectation of receiving anything in return."

            "Well, aren't you the little poster boy," Frank grumbles. Then he takes another long gulp of tea and settles back in his chair. He's still for a moment, such a long moment that Castiel begins to think he's fallen into thought. Then he says, suddenly: "I used to be married."

            He almost laughs at the startled look that flashes across Castiel's face. "I know, you wouldn't think anyone'd be that big a masochist, marrying someone like me." His smile is a grimace. "I wasn't always like this. I had a little girl named Janey, and she was eleven when she disappeared."

            Castiel goes cold.

            "We were on our way to Wyoming," Frank says. "To see Yellowstone. Stopped at a rest stop, and I let her go ahead to the vending machines on her own so I could check the tires on the car. Never saw her again."

            He stops. The silence rushes in, presses on Castiel's ear drums so hard he think he might be sick with it.

            "We looked everywhere," Frank says abruptly. "Combed every damn inch of the woods, every ditch, every truck stop from the Mississippi to the Rockies, it felt like. Quit my job to keep looking when the police wouldn't anymore. Lost my wife, my house.... I woke up one day and realized I was living out of my car."

            He doesn't speak for a long time.

            Castiel waits, very still.

            "Four years ago," Frank says finally, then clears his throat. "Four years back the police find this fucker in Wichita. Old guy, been taking girls from truck stops since the seventies. And they find where he'd dumped all the bodies, and I get a call. They think they found Janey.

            "So I came down here. I came down here and I got her body and I watched them sentence that bastard to death and I've been here ever since."

            They're quiet for a long, long time.

            "It's lonely," Frank says finally. "You get used to the guilt and the grief, but the waking up in the morning and knowing there's no one anywhere waiting for you..." He takes off his glasses and wipes his eyes. "There's no medicine for that."

            Castiel is silent. He studies Frank's face, pale and drawn.

            "Yet you're here," he says after a long moment. "And we would all hear it from Bobby, if you didn't show up to help him in the office now that he's gotten used to having company."

            Frank looks at him. Quirks up the side of his mouth, a little, before he pushes his glasses back on. He clears his throat. "Wasn't much in there about helping people, I guess."

            "On the contrary, I think there was quite a lot." Castiel traces a circle in the condensation from his tea. "I'm coming to find that the act of volunteering benefits us just as much as the people we seek to help, if not more."

            Frank makes a thoughtful sound, watching passers-by outside as dusk begins to fall. "You learning that from experience or second-hand?"

            "Both." Castiel looks up. "You?"

            Frank glances over at him. Takes a sip of his bubble tea.

            "Both," he says, and he and Castiel sit there with their teas until the street lamps come on.

 

\- o -

 

_Something was following them. They both sensed it, Joseph with his Hell-sharpened senses and Samandriel with the last fading flickers of his Grace. It was something of Purgatory but something of Joseph, too, and Samandriel thought of the ghoul that wore Joseph's body, that ate Joseph's flesh._

_"Oi!" Joseph finally shouted one day, spinning around. "Get out of here! I'm sick of smelling you on our ass!"_

_A figure stepped out of the trees. "And I'm sick of smelling your ass," it retorted._

_Samandriel stepped immediately in front of Joseph, his vessel's heart racing. An Amazon would be nothing to dispose of if his Grace was intact. But without it, he posed about as much threat to her as the seventeen-year-old boy whose body he was wearing, and based on the smirk under her yellow eyes, she knew it, too._

_Joseph wasn't anywhere near as intimidated. "The fuck are you?"_

_"That's my question," the Amazon said. " You smell like a hunter._ "

            _Joseph propped his club on his shoulder. "Good nose."_

_The Amazon's eyes traveled to Samandriel, up the mangled ruins of his wings. He hated the weakness their state advertised. He tried to raise them into a threatening position, trying to ignore the pain that went shooting through them...and the piece of necrosed flesh that slid from them to plop onto the leaf-covered ground._

_"Wow, real impressive," the creature said dryly._

_"Seriously, man?" Joseph muttered through the side of his mouth. "Not helping."_

_Samandriel stared the Amazon down. "Did you kill one of the Colts?" He was aware that they both died many times over, and if she had been the one to kill one or the other of them in any of those instances, it could explain why she smelled of their blood._

_But her eyes narrowed. "Try the other way around._ They _ganked_ me _."_

_Joseph barked out a harsh laugh. "Join the club."_

_The Amazon looked over at him. She studied him for a minute. "You're looking for the way out of here."_

_Samandriel stiffened._

_"There is no way out of here," Joseph said. "Unless you're looking to sightsee in Hell."_

_She bared her teeth at him. He bared his back._

_"I'm not an idiot," she hissed. "You're not the first human to come here." Her eyes flicked to Samandriel. "Not the first angel, either."_

_Samandriel took a step forward, studying her. "Who are you?"_

_Her eyes slid away. For the first time, he took in the dirt clinging to her clothing and hair, darkening her skin. Like she had been buried. "I know where the portal is. I saw it. If I get you there, you take me with you when you leave."_

_Her voice stank of desperation. She tried to hide it by baring her teeth again, but Samandriel didn't miss the quaver in her hands as they curled into fists at her sides, as she took a step toward them._

_Joseph didn't hesitate. "Deal."_

 

\- o -

 

            "Hey, Cas!"    

            Castiel leans around the door. He glimpses Mr. Elkins going into the other side of the clinic and smiles, lifts his hand in greeting as he waves at him. "Harry?"

            Harry Zeddmore bounces to his feet, stepping back to let Jake Turner past. "Hey, man!"

            "Hey yourself." Castiel smiles as he leads Harry to the scale: Harry knows the drill already, toeing off his shoes and stepping on. "How was the convention?"

            "Dude, it was awesome. I told you you should've come! There was this one chick dressed up as Supergirl, she looked _legit_ , man! Ed got her to sign his copy of _Apocalypse_."

            "How did your costume go over?"

            "Oh, well. You know how it goes." Harry shrugs as he settles in for the blood pressure cuff. "Ed couldn't really breathe in the Rorschach mask after a while, so he took it off and then people just assumed he was John Constantine."

            "Perhaps an improvement," Castiel says, straight-faced.

            Harry levels a finger at him. "Dude! You do not wanna start a fight with me over _Watchmen_. I'll get Ed in here, and you won't even know what hit you."

            "Yeah, yeah, like you and Ed could take me and Cas," Dean says absently as he passes by with a chart on his way to Medical Records.

            "Whatever, Dean!" Harry shouts after him, and Cas grins to himself as he prepares Harry's fingers for an Accucheck.

            Harry's blood sugar is lower than it was last time, 118, and Cas tells him so that Henry can take out the little book he's been using to log his sugar levels for Missouri and write it down.

            "How have the readings been?" he asks once they're in an exam room.

            "I mean--not great? But okay. I haven't been getting dizzy as much." Harry plops down in a chair to start unlacing his boots for a foot exam. "It's just--it sucks, you know? My boss is giving me a hard time about me keeping having to stop and check my sugar, and I get it, 'cause like if I was her and one of my people had to keep stopping like that I'd get kind of frustrated too. But at the same time there's nothing I can do about it, you know?"

            Castiel nods. "Do you think another note from Missouri would help?"

            "No, I just--" Harry sighs. "I really hope this insulin pump thing comes through soon so I can stop feeling like a burden on everyone."

            "You're not a burden, Harry. Rather, you are somewhat inspiring, to continue working as hard as you are in the face of such adversity."

            Harry blinks, looking taken aback. Then he laughs and pushes his glasses up on his nose. "Only somewhat inspiring?"

            "Perhaps if you admitted to John Constantine's superiority I would be willing to upgrade your status," Castiel says, and smirks as he shuts the door on Harry's laughter.

            "Does a soul good, doesn't it?"

            Castiel looks up as he places Harry's chart in the holder beside the door. Missouri's eyeing him knowingly from her computer. "Beg pardon?"

            "Shining a little light into people's days," she says. "Brightens up your own a little, too." She taps him on the chest with one finger. "I can see it."

            She smiles at him and heads into the exam room.

 

\- o -

 

            Dean drifts awake on Saturday to a warm body draped across his back and fingertips tracing up and down his stomach under the sheets.

            "You have two choices," Cas murmurs into his ear. His breath is warm again Dean's skin. "We can go get in your car and set out for parts unknown..." He closes his teeth around Dean's auricle and lowers his voice as well as his hand, "or I can give you a handjob."

            Dean groans and shoves into Cas's hand. Cas smiles and bites harder.

            They're interrupted maybe halfway in by Dean's phone vibrating on the nightstand.

            "Ignore it," Cas murmurs into his mouth, lips dragging slick and filthy down Dean's tongue as he pulls off of it before sucking it back into his mouth, and Dean does, thrusts harder into his hand with a groan.

            It's only a few hours later, once Dean's returned the favor and they've finally dragged themselves out of bed because both their stomachs are growling too loudly to ignore, that he remembers his phone. He picks it up and finds several all caps texts from Charlie telling him to GET YOUR ASS OUT OF BED I HAVE PLANS FOR US.

            Instead of bothering to listen to a voicemail that's probably in the same vein, he calls her, moving around Cas at the counter to see if they have any more eggs in the fridge.

            "The Apocalypse has surely arrived," Charlie intones into the phone when she picks up. "For a day has come when you, me, Benny, and G-girl all have off work."

            "That's nice," Dean says, "but I was planning to spend it having sex."

            "Bro. I feel you. But then poor Benny is left all on his lonesome and you would be the suckiest friend in existence and also have gone a whole summer without going to the pool. Are these really things you want on your headstone?"

            Dean leans back into the fingertips Cas is trailing languidly down his shoulder blades as he flips French toast. "Noooo," he drags out reluctantly, and sighs when Charlie hangs up with an ordered, "Be there or be triangular!"

             "Pool?" Cas says with an arched brow.

            "Is that cool?"

            "Rather, I suspect it will be hot."

            Dean flicks him in the ribs.

 

\- o -

 

            "Thought you were gonna wear a Speedo, Benny," Dean says when they stop next to the white pool chair Benny's stretched out, a mountain of muscle and hairy skin.

            Benny slits his eyes open just enough to peer at them from beneath the cap he's got on. "You musta dreamed that, brother. I'm from the bayou, not the Côte D'Azur."

            "Have you ever been to the Côte?" Castiel asks with some interest, setting down the bag of notes and sunscreen Dean had insisted on bringing along, which Castiel had confiscated on the way from the city pool parking lot after Charlie sent him a text saying DON'T LET DEAN BRING STUDY STUFF OR I'LL HACK YOUR LIFE. Castiel is not sure what having his life hacked entails, but at any rate he'd prefer to keep on the good side of someone who can make Dean laugh as hard as Charlie does.

            "Not a once," Benny says easily, leaning his head back again. "Why don't you tell me 'bout it."

            That's how Castiel ends up reclining on a chaise next to Benny as Dean goes to the edge of the pool, sitting down to trail his feet in the water and lean back on his hands, listening to Castiel talk about the coast's famous beaches. But after only a few minutes, Charlie and her girlfriend arrive in their swimsuits, Charlie with a Darth Vader towel and the latter with a Batman one.

            Dean grins. "I always knew you were the cool one, Gilda."

            "False!" Charlie cries, and pushes Dean into the pool with her foot. He squawks and grabs her ankle to pull her in after him, which gets them a warning whistle from the lifeguard.

            Benny hooks his ankle under the rung of a nearby chair to pull it toward them. "This is why I don't come to the pool with them."

            Charlie's companion sits in the chair regally, extending her hand to Castiel as a splash war begins between Dean and Charlie. "I don't believe we've met. I'm Gilda."

            "Castiel." He squeezes her hand once, noting the long graceful fingers. "Piano?"

            She smiles. "Once upon a time, yes. You as well?"

            "Violin, actually. But past tense, as well." He leans back in his seat again as Gilda says, "Excuse me. Charlie!"

            "What?" Charlie's somehow managed to make her way onto Dean's shoulders for a game of chicken, and they both turn in unison, squinting.

            Gilda tosses her a banana yellow bottle. "Sunscreen."

            "Oh, crap, yeah, I forgot," Cas hears Dean say. For a moment, he considers wading into the water shamelessly to help Dean apply it, but it's so comfortable up here, stretched out under the beating sun as Gilda speaks to Benny about a recent sale on shrimp at the seafood market.

            After a while, Dean and Charlie drift back over to them again. Charlie drapes her arms over the side as Dean pulls himself up to sit on the edge again. They're saying something about moving an army west, and Cas listens lazily with his eyes closed behind his sunglasses, gradually gathering that they're talking about some sort of game rather than real life.

            "Now wait a second," Benny drawls after a while. "Did y'all make arrangements to match or somethin'?"

            Castiel cracks an eyelid open. Sure enough, the dark red of Dean's swim trunks almost exactly matches Charlie's burgundy two-piece. They look down at themselves, then each other, and Charlie says, "It's because a handmaiden must match his queen." She grins. "That's why we wear the same kind of und--"

            Dean elbows her in the side. She wails and splashes backward in the water, kicking her legs hard to send huge waves of water splashing at him. The lifeguard starts blowing his whistle again. "Dean!" he shouts.

            "Sorry, Aaron!" Dean shouts back, with a grin that doesn't look very apologetic at all. He nudges Charlie in the side with his foot, which she grabs in her hands as she shouts, "Sorry, A-man!" and then tries to drag Dean around by his foot, sending him off balance and crashing back into the water with a splash.

            Gilda pats Castiel's bare foot with her own. "It's completely normal to be jealous," she informs him. "I often am."

            "No need, there's more than enough of us to go around," Charlie proclaims, spreading her arms before Dean surfaces and dunks her again. She bobs back to the surface, spluttering, as Benny says, "I dunno, I can take a lot."

            "Big words, big guy," Dean says as Charlie shoves hair out of her eyes, and Benny says nothing, just grins and swings his legs over the side of his chair. He steps to the edge of the pool and does a belly flop that submerges both Charlie and Dean in the ensuing splash.

            It also drenches Cas and Gilda. Cas blinks water from his eyes, goosebumps racing up his arms, as Gilda's teeth begin to chatter. The water is _cold_. Gilda wraps herself tight in her Batman towel and hands Cas Charlie's towel to do the same, then squeezes into his chair next to him, pressing their sides together for warmth as they direct their combined glares onto the trio in the pool, who are paying them exactly zero attention as Dean and Charlie try to drag Benny under.

            It's...unexpectedly enjoyable.

 

\- o -

 

            He must fall asleep getting warm again, as he and Gilda talk leisurely about the hardest pieces to play with their respective instruments, because the next thing he knows he's stretching under a damp towel, feeling flushed, and blinking.

            And Dean's grinning at him in a way that means nothing good.

            He rubs under his sunglasses with his free hand. "What did you do?"

            "Who, me?" Dean sits back in his chair. Castiel could swear he has a few new freckles sprinkled across his nose already, highlighting the mischievous curve of his mouth. "I didn't do a thing, Cas."

            Beside Cas, Gilda's rubbing her own face, taking off her sunglasses to peer at her reflection in them. She groans and angles the dark lenses toward him. In their reflection, he sees that someone's written something across his forehead in sun block. He has to lean closer to see what it is: CASS, with the C crossed out.

            He looks at Dean. Who grins.

            "That is not how you spell it," Cas says with dignity. He focuses his Not Amused Look on Charlie, who's sporting a far more convincing innocent expression than Dean.

            "Have you ever actually spelled it?" Dean says in a Let's Be Reasonable Voice that sounds a lot like the one he uses on patients who don't want to stick to the [DASH diet](http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/dash-diet/HI00047).  


            "That is beside the point," Cas says with dignity, and swipes the sunblock off his face to smear the handful across Dean's pectoral muscles, "Win _chest_ er."

            Benny snorts as Charlie cackles. Dean's flushing beneath his tan, which Castiel is both pleased and conceited enough to believe is from his touch. He mutters, "Yeah, yeah, _Laf_ itte up, fuzzball," which sends everyone but Cas into groans and laughter.

            He wipes the rest of the sunblock off his forehead. "I don't understand that reference."

            "Dude!" Charlie's finally caught her breath from laughing. She kicks Dean's leg. "You're dating someone who hasn't seen _Star Wars_? Low standards, Winchester."

            Cas is miffed. "I've seen _Star Trek_." The new movies, at least.

            "So not the same! You don't deserve the towel." She tugs her Darth Vader towel away from him. Castiel shifts his weight so that he's sitting more fully on it and lets her try, smirking.

            "Oh, it is on," Charlie growls finally, throwing her hands in the air. Cas has no idea what she's about to do, until she's turns and flings herself into the pool. The painful-sounding smack of her belly hitting the water is the last thing Castiel hears before a monsoon of pool water buries him.

            He coughs, spluttering and wiping his eyes, as Benny, Gilda, and Dean roar with laughter around him. Charlie floats back to the surface, clutching her visibly reddened stomach.

            "Owwwww," she groans.

            Gilda takes the sopping Darth Vader towel from Cas and flings it into the pool on top of her. "There you go, Queen Belly Flop."

 

\- o -

 

            Once the pool closes at five, everyone but Benny goes to Charlie and Gilda's for a Star Wars viewing. (Benny leaves for a date, the details of which he refuses to share with Dean or Charlie despite the various unsavory methods they use to find out, including stealing his cell phone, which Gilda foils by pulling it back out of Charlie's swimsuit top and handing it to Benny.)

            "Plain buttery or extra buttery?" Charlie calls from the kitchen as the rest of them settle into the living room.

            "Carrot sticks!" Gilda calls back, which gets her a groan.

            Gilda grins over at where Dean is sifting through the huge stack of DVDs in a huge tub neat to Gilda and Charlie's entertainment center. "Jesus, I can't believe you keep your DVDs like this, Charlie."

            "We're not all as anal as you, Winchester," she retorts, coming into the living room climbing over the back of the sofa to sit on it as Gilda opens the hollow coffee table to pull out a bunch of throw pillows she tosses at the huge leather armchair where, Castiel assumes, he and Dean will be sitting. "I told you, Episode IV's all the way at the bottom."

            "Yet _Fantastic Four_ is at the top." Dean snorts, tossing said DVD over his shoulder. "Disgraceful."

            Charlie dives to catch it. "It has Jessica Alba in it!"

            "So does _Dark Angel_ ," Dean retorts. "Doesn't make it worth watching." Then he makes a triumphant noise. "Ha! Found it."

            Cas may or may not make a slightly disappointed sound. Dean's search for the DVD at the bottom of the tub had put his backside on rather appealing display, especially as he'd changed from his swim trunks into a pair of faded cut-off jeans that he apparently wore to help Gilda and Charlie pain their kitchen a few months ago. They're hideous, really, straight out of the 90s, and Dean groaned when Charlie dug them out of the laundry room and threw them at him, but between how snug they are and the tan Dean's legs picked up from a day at the pool, Castiel's been more than a little distracted.

            Charlie smirks at him like she knows what he's thinking. Cas drops down in the armchair and grabs one of the pillows. Charlie keeps smirking. Then says, "Hey!" and goes to her bag near the front door as Dean rocks back on his bare feet to put the disc in the DVD player. "I forgot!" She tosses something at Dean. "The Mucomyst rep was at work the other day, he gave out a bunch of these, so I snagged one for you."

            Dean glances down at it, padding over to the armchair to plop down next to Cas. He tilts it so Castiel, peering at it curiously, can see. "Dosing chart," he explains, and tosses a "Thanks, man" at Charlie, but his voice is suddenly a little distant, his eyes the same. He's thinking about all the things he should be doing, Castiel can tell, the tests he has to study for and papers to write. His muscles are going tense the way they always do when he starts to think about the things he should be doing instead of having fun.

            Castiel slides to the floor in front of the armchair as the film begins to play. Eyes on the screen, he pulls Dean's foot onto his knee. He begins to knead it, pushing his thumb gently under the malleolus, along the arch. Dean's skin is still warm from the sun and soft from the pool water, the scent of chlorine faint in Castiel's nose. He watches the strange white soldiers and the angry man in black, tilting his head as the droids encounter the small hooded aliens, but most of his attention is on the small muscles in Dean's foot and ankle, pressing carefully until they relax, until he can trace the very tips of his fingers along the instep without much more than a miniscule twitch of Dean's toes.

            By the time the film is done, Dean's asleep.

            "That happens these days," Charlie says in a low voice so as not to wake up. "Everyone's sleep-deprived until they take their boards."

            "Charlie slept for two months straight after she took hers," Gilda murmurs.

            Castiel cups Dean's foot. "Should we leave him here?"

            "Yeah, you guys can spend the night if you want." Charlie slithers off the couch to put the next DVD in the series into the player.

 

-o -

 

            The next morning, Cas wakes up on the floor with Dean's foot resting on his shoulder. He blinks blearily at the throw pillow under his cheek, then cranes around to see Charlie stretched out on the couch with her arm flung out. Dean's in the same armchair he fell asleep in, just slouched further down with a Hogwarts throw tossed over his shoulders. Gilda's nowhere to be seen.

            Cas eases out from under Dean's bare foot, careful not to wake him, and pads to the bathroom. Afterward, he goes to Charlie and Gilda's bright, airy kitchen, where Gilda's wearing a kimono-style robe and making pancakes as classical music plays softly from an iPod docked in the corner.

            She smiles as him as he enters. "Buckwheat or instant?"

            Castiel hasn't had healthy food in what feels like forever. "Buckwheat."

            Gilda perks up, her smile becoming less polite and more genuine. "Usually no one wants buckwheat but me!"

            "Their loss," Castiel says, and hesitates a few feet from her. "Can I help you with anything?"

            "Wanna get some orange juice out of the fridge for us?" She opens a cabinet and hands him two glasses. "So, you've probably answered this a million times here already, but what's your major?"

            "Pre-med."

            "Oh?" The interest in Gilda's voice is polite but not genuine. After seeing how many students at the clinic are planning to be doctors, he can't entirely say he blames her. It seems to have become a fairly commonplace ambition. "So, are you doing it for the money, the prestige, or because you actually want to help people?"

            Castiel screws the lid back onto the orange juice. "Would you actually believe me if I said it was primarily the third one?"

            Gilda studies him. "Probably not." Before she can say anything else, there's the sound of a thud in the other room, then sputtering.

            "What the f--Charlie!"

            "Eww, now there's drool on my pillow!"

            "Maybe you shouldn't have stuffed it in my face!"

            "How else was I going to wake you up, Sleeping Beauty?"

            "Sometimes I think I should just build them a doghouse and exile them to the backyard," Gilda says with a sigh. "Here, watch." She picks up a pancake from the stacked plate and tosses it through the kitchen doorway into the living room. There's the sound of tussling, and indignant shout, and then a "Ha!" A moment later, a bed-headed Dean pads into the kitchen looking disgruntled and muttering about Charlie being a fucking cheater.

            Castiel and Gilda look at each other and laugh.

 

\- o -

 

            "I see you've paid for an AMCAS account," is the first thing Naomi says on her next phone call.

            He picks at the lid of his espresso. He's sitting in the same coffee shop where he found Dean that awkward, uncertain night nearly three months ago. His laptop's open in front of him, and at his elbow is a list of the medical schools he has decided to apply to. "Yes."

            He's not sure what he expects Naomi to say. He used one of his credit cards knowing that she would see the charge and know that he was beginning his applications, so he supposes he expected _something_ , but it wasn't for her to say, "Are you sure this is what you want to do, Castiel?"

            He blinks. "Beg pardon?"

            "I want to make sure that this is what you want." Her voice is uncharacteristically uncertain. "Not...what you feel obligated to do."

            Castiel must be dreaming. "Are you all right?"

            "Castiel." A touch of her usual asperity sharpens her tone. "Please. I'm trying here. Many things have changed, and I...I'm trying."

            Castiel studies the steam rising from his cup. Thinks of Frank and the stories hidden in him like the bubbles at the bottom of his milk tea. "I know."

            "Then please, just--is this what you really want to do?"

            "How can you know?" When his mother is silent for a moment, he says, "I don't mean that rhetorically. I mean, when it was you. How did you know it was what you wanted to do?"

            It takes a moment for her to reply. "I didn't."

            Silence slides between them.

            After a moment, Naomi exhales, a long staticky noise. "It's what my father did, and my brothers, and there was never a certainty, Castiel, that I was doing the right thing. Only a constant fear that I wasn't.

            "Eventually I learned to be satisfied with myself and what I was doing, but..." She trails off. They're both silent for a moment.

            "I'm sorry, Mother," he says quietly.

            "It's not your fault, Castiel," she says just as softly. "But thank you." She takes a breath. "So I'm asking you, one last time. Are you sure this is what you want?"

            Castiel thinks of Harry who's worried he'll lose his job because of his diabetes, of Nora Havelock who's keeping the mass Missouri found in her breast a secret because she doesn't want to worry her son. Of Jeffrey Anfitrio who Bobby's still trying to get speech therapy for after the brain damage he sustained when he was mugged last year. Of Frank and Ellen and Julia Wright all the other people like them. Writing is something he has always used to get away from himself, but working at the clinic has made him want to spend more time with himself, to learn how to become as strong and determined as the people he meets.

            He doesn't want to forget that feeling.

            "Yes. I'm fairly certain I'm sure."

            A small laugh escapes the other end of the phone. " _Fairly certain_ is not the same as _sure_ , Castiel."

            "It's the closest you're going to get, Mother," he retorts, and she laughs again. Another silence falls between them, this one resonant with fondness and laughter, easier than any silence Castiel has ever shared with her.

            "I'm very proud of you," she says after a moment. "I was even before this. Word is that Professor Crowley doesn't give just anyone A's in his creative writing seminars."

            Castiel takes the phone away from his ear for a moment. Stares at it before bringing it back to his ear. Naomi's laughing affectionately again, as though she can see his expression through the phone.

            "Honestly, Castiel, I pay your tuition. You didn't think I would see what classes you were taking each semester?"

            Castiel says nothing. He's caught between guilt and rebellion, wants her to know that it wasn't just because he wished to deceive her for his own reasons. Wants her to know that part of the reason he hid it was for her, was because he didn't want her to be reminded of how much like his father Castiel still was, even after everything. Because for all that Samandriel was the one who obeyed their mother in all things, Castiel had been the one loyal in that arena, the one who stopped reading the books that Chuck put before his family, before his sons and before their mother. It's taken him years to realize that the same sting he felt all those years, his mother had been enduring for at least as long, and he wonders for the first time if there are things in Chuck's books she recognizes, places and lines that resonate and hurt.

            "That time we went to the carnival with Dad," he hears himself say. "Alfie and I--the time he got sick and threw up. Do you remember...?"

            He knows from her silence that she doesn't. "No, Castiel. I don't, I'm sorry." She's quiet for a moment. "Would you tell me about it?"

            Castiel chews on his lip for a moment, eyeing his reflection in the laptop screen that's long since gone to sleep.

            Then he closes it and begins to speak.

           

 

 

 

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

**rating:** E

 **warnings:** Sex. Slight body horror (unrelated to the sex).

 **disclaimer:** Opinions espoused here are not necessarily those of the author.

 

****

**10.0**

_"I want you to understand."_

\-- "The Man Who Would Be King," 6.20

 

            Dean must mention to Charlie that Castiel is beginning to work on med school applications, because one afternoon he gets a text from a number he doesn't recognize.

            **Castiel, this is Gilda. Charlie said you were working on some essays and I wanted to offer my proofreading services.**

            Castiel waits until he's finished faxing all of Bobby's back-logged paperwork to head back to the side of the clinic where Dean and Charlie are working with Dr. Roman. Dean and Roman must be in exam rooms, but Charlie's standing at the counter, bobbing her head in time to the song she's singing under her breath as she traces her calipers along an EKG.

            "Charlie."

            She jumps. "Jeez, Cas! Make noise much?" She doesn't give him a chance to answer. "Oh, hey, did Gilda text you?"

            "Yes." He hesitates. "Thank you, but...would I be imposing on her time?"

            "Are you kidding? She loves that proofreading stuff. I used to open my papers in undergrad and find little red Track Changes all over them."

            Castiel tilts his head. "She enjoys writing?"

            "Editing," Charlie says. "She likes _editing_. Apparently there's a difference."

            Castiel smiles at her snort. "I suppose there is." He stands there for a moment, and Charlie raises her eyebrow at him.

            "Was there something else...?"

            "Do you think Dr. Roman would write a letter of recommendation for me?"

            Charlie scrunches up her face. "Well, let's see, you've only been helping here _all summer_ ," she says mock-doubtfully. Then she plants her chin in her fist, propping her elbow on the counter as she studies him. "D'you want to do cardiology?"

            Castiel shifts. Leans his hip against the counter as Charlie continues to study him. "I do enjoy it," he says slowly. "Deciphering EKGs and examining echocardiograms. But I am..." He hesitates, "less adept at the people portion of patient care, I am afraid."

            "Well, you're no me," Charlie says, and tosses her hair over her shoulder with a grin, "but I think you're doing a fair job of the whole talking thing. Nobody's run away screaming yet, have they?"

            Cas winces. "Only Chastity Post."

            Charlie winces, too. That wasn't Cas's best moment. "That was really early on, though! And Dean smoothed it over, didn't he?"

            "I don't wish to talk about it," Cas mumbles.

            Charlie twirls her ladybug-topped pen in her fingers. "You like looking at histories," she says. "I've seen you leafing back through the older sections of the charts."

            "Yes. I enjoy picking up...tiny details that have meaning. Anticipating what they could be, or will."

            Charlie's expression has become even more thoughtful. "You know what I think you'd like?" she says. "I'm gonna give you this doc's name. Tell him you're a student, you're looking for someone to shadow. He knows who I am, tell him I said you're good stuff."

            Castiel looks down at the scrap of paper she slides to him. It reads, _Dr. Marv -- 821-0823._

            He looks up to ask Charlie if the doctor's last name is really Marv, but she's already gone.

           

\- o -

 

            Dean considers the Pandora screen on his laptop. "Zep or Kansas?"

            Cas rolls his eyes where he's sitting at the counter typing a response to _Summarize your greatest achievement in 250 words or less_. Dean is the only person he's ever met who has only two Pandora stations. "Neither."

            "You're such a dick, Cas." Dean huffily plugs his ear buds into his laptop instead as he clicks open a new window. "You're lucky I don't throw your ass out of this apartment on princi--"

            Castiel turns, alarmed by the way Dean's voice cuts off. "What?"

            Dean doesn't answer. His eyes are wide, fixed on his computer screen as he reads something there. Castiel slides down from his stool but doesn't come any closer, not sure if Dean wants to share whatever it is has him looking so shocked.

            After a moment, Dean looks over at him. He's got his upper lip drawn under his bottom teeth; it's the look he gets when he's trying to decide whether or not to tell someone something.

            Castiel comes closer. He folds to his knees next to the coffee table and reaches for the laptop slowly, slow enough for Dean to stop him if he wants, then swivels it toward him so he can see the screen.

            The Firefox window open is an e-mail from Human Resources at **El Camino Hospital, The Hospital of Silicon Valley**. It states that Dean's application for a nurse practitioner position in the Emergency Department was received and that, based on his letters of recommendation and employment history, he has been invited for an interview in Mountain View, California.

            Mountain View is fifteen minutes from Palo Alto.

            Castiel's eyes slide back to Dean. He has his lip drawn even further beneath his teeth now; he's staring at the side of the screen like he's reading the e-mail through it all over again.

            "I applied back in May. To be closer to Sammy." His eyes flick up to Castiel, wide and stunned, but guarded, too. "I'm not--like--trying to follow you back to Stanford, or--"

            He stops.

            Castiel swallows. He feels stunned. He hasn't given any concrete thought to what will happen after this summer, outside of the far more distant plans of graduation and what will happen after it. He hasn't thought about what will happen to _them._ It curdles his insides even to try.

            But this is a moment of excitement, or should be. He's cognizant enough to realize that. "We should go out. Celebrate."

            Dean stares at him. Then he licks his lip, once, and nods.

 

\- o -

 

            "You can't tell Sammy," is the first thing out of Dean's mouth once the waitress leaves with their orders.

            Castiel frowns, leaning forward to take a sip of his Riesling. "But he would be proud of you."

            "I don't want him to know unless they hire me. I don't want him to--I mean, chances are I won't get the job."

            Castiel frowns at him. Dean doesn't seem to notice, seems too keyed up to notice Castiel's expression at all. He's running his finger up and down the sweating side of his glass of ice water, knee jiggling under the linen tablecloth.

            "I didn't apply to Stanford Hospital," he says suddenly. "'Cause I figured, you know, it's probably full of all the Stanford grads and stuff. But since El Camino's a little further out..." He sits up straighter and tugs at the sleeves of the pale green dress shirt Castiel found in his closet.

            Castiel lowers his wine. "How will Sam know how to arrange housing if he doesn't know what you're planning?"

            Dean's eyes skim along the table cloth. "I didn't-- I mean, maybe when I applied, but--you guys already have your set-up and everything. I'm not trying to get in the way of that. I swear. I just--you know, when Sam has time on the weekend or whatever, me and him could meet up. See some football games or something."

            "And me?" Castiel says over the rim of his glass.

            Dean flushes. "Yeah, but I--like I said, Cas. This doesn't change anything. I'm not--some chick who thinks just 'cause we had fun over the summer we're gonna keep going once it's over. I've got no illusions."

            Castiel is silent. When their dinner is done, he gets up and holds his hand out to Dean. He pulls him up from the table and out to the car, and when they get back to apartment, he kisses and sucks his way down Dean's body, pressing his mouth against Dean's clavicle, his heartbeat, the curve of his shoulder where his arm is hooked tightly around Castiel's neck, and the whole time he's not sure if it's an _of course we're going to keep going_ or a _thank you for understanding I'm going to leave you_.

 

\- o -

 

            Dr. Marv is a short, round man with watery blue eyes, wearing a cable-knit sweater and khakis under his white coat. He takes off his glasses when he stands to shake Castiel's hand.

            "The angel!" he says.  "You come with high recommendations, Castiel. Charlie's never set me up with a student before."

            Castiel smiles politely, taking the swivel seat the doctor pushes toward him. The room, located in the hospital's Radiology department, doesn't feel as small as it is, probably because of the four very large flat-screen computer monitors dominating the space. "How do you know Charlie, sir?"

            "She did one of her school rotations with me." The radiologist knits his hands over his belly, considering Castiel. "I was hoping she would like it--would've been nice to have someone help me out back here."

            Castiel raises a brow curiously. "Did she not? Like it, that is."

            Dr. Marv clicks his tongue enigmatically. "I suppose you'd have to ask her that."

            Then there's a beep from one of the computers. He says, "Ah!" and swivels back around to face it, pushing his glasses back on and peering at the screen. "Come closer, Castiel, have a look at this."

            Castiel rolls closer. The screen shows a chest X-ray, but that's about all he can tell.

            "The number one rule of reading any sort of image is to look at the history," Dr. Marv says. He clicks on the electronic health record window, then tuts. "Unfortunately, in this patient's case, it appears it hasn't been put in the computer yet. So much for that lesson." He clicks back to the X-ray. "We'll have to make do. With any chest x-ray, there's seven things you should look at. The first are the apices of the lungs--" He circles the cursors around the tops of the lungs, "because this is where we'll see evidence of TB. Then you move down to the costophrenic angles above the diaphragm to make sure they're sharp. What do you see on this right lung?"

            Castiel squints at it. "The angle's round. Not sharp."

            "Very good. What could that mean?"

            "Pneumonia?"

            "Well, yes, that's true. But I was going for something more general for now--it means there's fluid in the space surrounding the lungs. Do you know what that's called?"

            "A pleural effusion," Cas answers, recalling a picture Dean showed him in his anatomy book a few weeks ago.

            "Excellent!" Marv exclaims, and Castiel tucks a smile into his mouth, because it's one thing for Dean to call him smart and quite another to be complimented by a physician who doesn't know him from Adam. He feels proud. "That's exactly what we have here. Since we already know what it is, let's see if we can figure out why it happened without having the patient's history. It could be pneumonia, like you said, but we have an abdominal film here that was also ordered." He opens a window with an X-ray of the patient's abdomen. "Something else that can cause pleural effusions is cirrhosis, and what I'm seeing right here--" He points at small white spots extending across the abdomen where the pancreas is located, "are pancreatic calcifications."

            Castiel studies them, pride fading into perplexity. He doesn't know much about the liver. "Hepatitis?"

            "Not quite. You almost invariably see pancreatic calcifications in patients who suffer from chronic pancreatitis. Which means we're most likely looking at an individual who's been abusing alcohol for a long time." He magnifies the image. "Do you see how gray the abdomen looks here, compared to the black you usually see in X-rays? This means there's fluid in the abdomen. It's a sign of liver failure."

            Castiel stares hard at the film. At the grays and blacks and the speckled whites. "You can tell all that just from one X-ray?"

            Marv laughs, sitting back in his seat with his hands knitted over his belly again. "Well, two X-rays. But I'm thinking you see the appeal?"

            Castiel can't quite look away, can't tear his eyes from the small calcifications and gray fluid, trying to trace the patterns himself, to figure them out and burn them into his mind. It's a whole story told as an image, if one can only learn how to read it, and it feels like picking apart his father's books; this scene could mean this, this article of clothing could suggest that.

            He looks at Dr. Marv. "What are the other five things one should look at in a chest X-ray?"

            The radiologist smiles.

 

\- o -

 

_The Amazon began to teach Joseph how to kill. Showed him where a vampire's spine was weakest to decapitate it, where to stab under an okami's ribcage to puncture both their lungs, how a werewolf's heart was larger and displaced downward, so that if you aimed for their gut you severed their aorta and made them bleed out from the inside._

_"You haven't told him about your kind," Samandriel said one night. They were sitting at right angles to each other, watching Joseph sleep on the other side of their small fire. "How your kind's organs are reversed from where they are in humans." Situs inversus, it was called, the heart occupying the right and the liver the left._

_"Why would I want him to know where to aim to kill me?" the Amazon said. Her yellow eyes sat on Samandriel, traced him like a thumb along a blade to test its sharpness._

_He shifted his wrist, baring the gleam of his sword to the firelight. "I know where to aim."_

_"Yeah." Her lips peeled back in a smirk. "I figured you did."_

_They stared at each other for a long moment, the orange flames crackling between them. And for the first time in a long time, Samandriel felt like a predator. Like the Warrior of God he had been created to be._

_It felt like being able to fly again._

\- o -

 

            When Dean gets home that afternoon, Cas is on the couch, still in the Oxford shirt and dress pants he wore to shadow Dr. Marv on the radiologist's 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift. He's typing feverishly on his laptop, sleeves pushed up his arms, the scruff on his jaw nearly as dark as the black-framed glasses he's pushed on.

            He looks up when Dean comes in, blinking as Dean stares back, absorbing the fact that apparently Cas hasn't gone to bed since he got home. He looks somewhat owlish, blinking at Dean from behind his glasses like he doesn't understand how Dean suddenly got there. It's stupidly hot, and the next thing Dean knows, he's walking over and pushing Cas's laptop carefully shut before putting it on the table and climbing over Cas's knees.

            Cas pulls his glasses off. "Dean?"

            "You look like a hobo."

            Cas folds the glasses, frowning. "I--"

            "A really hot hobo," Dean says, and closes his mouth over Cas's stubble. He rubs his lips back and forth along it, scrapes his tongue against the grain, and Cas's eyelids stutter shut. He tilts his head back, sweaty palms against Dean's back. This is how they've been since the El Camino e-mail, hot and heavy and desperate, like they can feel the rest of the summer burning away beneath their feet.

            "How was it?" he breathes into Cas's skin.

            "Really--" Cas's breath hitches as Dean begins to suck, feeling Cas's pulse jump against his tongue. "--really good--"

            "Yeah?" Dean moves downward.

            "Y-yeah--" Another hiss. His hands clench shut in Dean's shirt. " _Dean_ \--"

            "So X-rays get you going, huh?" Dean murmurs against him. "You gonna jump my bones?"

            Cas groans. "Shut up, Dean."

            Dean grins and lets himself be shoved down onto the couch.

 

\- o -

 

            Meg pokes her head in early the next morning, when Dean is turning on the computers and Castiel and Ruby are preparing Progress Notes for Missouri's charts for that day. "Gotta steal you from Missouri today, Dean-o."

            It's Dean's silence that gets Castiel's attention. Usually he'd grumble, since it's Meg, or say, "Gotcha, be there in a sec" if it was anyone else. But he doesn't say anything. Castiel looks over and sees that Dean's jaw is set, his eyes flat and cold above the white of his coat.

            "Sorry, kid," Meg says. "Alastair's usual assist called in sick."

            Castiel watches them curiously. For the first time in a long time, he remembers how icy Dean had been after Castiel arranged Sam's internship through Dr. Alastair. And for the first time, studying Dean's stiff appearance, it occurs to him to wonder whether that reaction had as much to do with Alastair as it did with Cas causing Sam to leave Lawrence for the summer.

            He hears himself say, "May I accompany Dean?"

            Meg shrugs. "If the doc doesn't care, I don't either."

            "Cas," Dean begins sharply.

            But Castiel is already striding past him, to Alastair's side of the clinic. The tall doctor stands at the counter, looking through his small pile of charts. He looks up when Cas comes in, smiles.

            "Well, here's the prodigal son," he says. "I'm hurt, Castiel, you went nearly the whole summer without coming back to see me. And after the favor I did you and everything."

            "My apologies. I would like to shadow you today, if that's all right."

            Alastair's eyes slide past him, over his shoulder. "That wouldn't have anything with my assistant, would it?" He smiles slowly. "Hello, Dean."

            "Sir." Dean pushes past Castiel, goes into the surgical room where the special moveable overhead light and table are located. He's taken his white coat off, is wearing just his blue hospital scrubs, and Cas doesn't like the way it looks. Like Dean is suddenly smaller than he was, like he could fade into the background of the blue wall and the sterile blue drapes that cover the surgical table and trays.

            "First thing on the schedule's a shave biopsy." Alastair picks up a chart. "Castiel, why don't you come with me to get the patient? He needs to sign a consent form saying he's been informed of the risks of today's procedure."

            Castiel follows the surgeon to the waiting room, then into the exam room with the patient. Mr. Wayne Whittaker's appointment is to have a suspicious spot removed from his scalp and biopsied to see if it's cancerous. Castiel doesn't hear much more than that as Alastair talks to Whittaker, listening too hard to the rustle of paper and plastic in the adjacent room, the scuff of Dean's sneakers against the floor.

            When he follows Alastair and the patient into the surgical room a few minutes later, Dean already has a blue paper gown on over his scrubs. He wordlessly unfolds a fenestrated drape with his gloved hands as Mr. Whittaker lies back on the table. Alastair pulls on his own gown and a packet of sterile gloves from the cabinet.

            "If you'd just stand at the foot of the table, Castiel," he says, edging behind Dean to get to the head of the table, where Dean's placing the fenestrated drape over Whittaker's head so that the lesion is left exposed. There's a proprietary way he touches Dean, nudging Dean's waist to move him slightly out of the way so he can squeeze past him. Then he holds him lightly by the hip to keep him in place as he leans past him for an extra packet of sutures. Dean is tight-lipped, but he doesn't say anything, just loops a mask over his mouth and nose, eyes burning straight ahead through the plastic shield as Alastair gets down to work, beginning to [hum](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLnQKLtFr58).  


 

\- o -

 

            "Dean," Castiel says afterward. When Alastair's gone for the day, when Dean's gathering up all the patient charts to take them back to Medical Records. He says it again, as he struggles to find what to say. "Dean. Does he--?"

            The eyes Dean turns on him are like frozen venom, icy green in his impassive face. They dare Castiel to say a single thing.

            He doesn't.

 

\- o -

 

            Stupid of Dean to think Cas would let it go. Because once they're in the apartment that afternoon, and Dean's kicking off his shoes so hard they _thunk_ into the wall, Cas is touching his shoulder. "Dean. Alastair shouldn't be allowed to--"

            Dean yanks away, goes around the counter to put his lunchbox down. Can't stand to be touched, suddenly; wants this space between them.

            "You know how many surgeons we have volunteering to come work at the clinic?" he says as he shoves his hands under the faucet, starts to scrub them. "One. One guy, four hours a week, for all three hundred of our patients. You think I'm going to mess that up just 'cause he can't keep his hands to himself?"

            He shuts off the water, looks up at Cas. "I can take shit, Cas. Ninety percent of the time that's what you have to do in this job, deal with _shit_. So if you don't think you can do that, maybe you should go back to your little story land and stay the fuck out of medicine."

            Cas stares at him, lips parted.

            Dean stares back, eyes fierce and jaw set.

            Cas gazes back a moment longer, searching his face. But he doesn't seem to find what he's looking for, because he turns away and picks up his keys and leaves.

            Dean leans back against the kitchen counter. The edge digs into the small of his back, and he pushes back harder against it, closing his eyes. Clenches his fingers around it, feeling the crumbs from that morning's toast dig into his palms, because his heart is racing, pounding, trying to shove him out the apartment and down the stairs to catch Cas and tell him, _I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, I was out of line_.

            But that's the problem, that's what's wrong with him, because that's how he deals with stuff, is by swallowing and _taking_ it. All those good reviews his preceptors give, and the evaluations from his supervisors at work, how Dean's such a team player, how he's so easy to work with--what it really means is that he's good at taking their shit without lip. Other nurses get upset; their tempers flare; they cry; they walk out. Dean just puts up with it. Says sorry when it's not his fault, shrugs it off when he gets crapped on about being a guy nurse, even lets Alastair put his fucking hands all over him; he just takes it and keeps doing the job because fuck, what else is he supposed to do? This is how it is, this is how it's always been, right from that first rotation years ago, the surgeon snapping, "Can somebody help this twink hold his fucking retractor steady?" The rushing humiliation, the heat in his neck and ears and hands, keeping his head down and holding the retractor more tightly, he can remember it all, can remember the way the surgeon clapped him on the back afterward, all adrenaline and coming down from the high, and told him good job. And Dean said _thank you, sir_ , and went home feeling sick, feeling the words burrow and nest in him like an infection. But when Sam finally got him to sit down and made him spill it out, Dean tried to make it something good, tried to make it a life lesson, sometimes the only way to get through things is to grin and bear 'em, Sammy, and Dad taught us that, didn't he, and when Sam just looked at him, Dean's smile faltered and, "It's just, he taught us how to take shit, is all I'm saying."

            And Sam all sad and mad and quiet, "He taught us to take it _like_ shit, Dean," and that was years ago, now, but it's been curled up in Dean's head ever since, like TB, like once he was infected it was always in him, coming back whenever he feels good, whenever he feels accomplished from a compliment or a congratulations, because when someone says he's good it only means he rolled over for them like a good little bitch, and what kind of "well done" is that?

            So yeah. Dean knows he's FOS. And he feels shame, okay, for the way Alastair touches him and the way he doesn't say anything and the way Alastair keeps doing it because he knows Dean's not going to say anything.

            But he's not going to kick up a fuss. Not now, when he's so close to getting out of Lawrence.

            Not now, when he's so close to being free.

 

\- o -

 

            Castiel takes his own car the next day. He spends the morning and afternoon working in Bobby's office with him and Frank. They finish late, trying to re-send several files that were sent with the wrong DEA numbers, when Castiel gets back to the apartment, the Impala is already parked in its usual spot.

            Dean is in the bedroom when he comes inside, trying to take off his watch without bending the leather. His eyes flick up to Castiel.

            "Look," he begins.

            Castiel shakes his head. He steps close, keeping his gaze locked with Dean's, and takes his wrist. He doesn't look away as he slides the tongue of leather loose and drops the watch on Dean's dresser. Just says, "Do you want to talk?"

            Dean looks at him for a minute, eyes searching. Then he shakes his head.

            "Then we won't." In a single fluid movement Cas is on his knees. Dean's pulse jumps, among other things, but Cas has his head bent, is untying the laces of Dean's right sneaker, then the left. Dean curls his toes inside them, feeling the nervous sweaty slipperiness of them inside his socks and the heat radiating from the crown of Cas's head through the fabric of his scrubs and boxers.

            When he's done, Cas grasps Dean's ankles gently, warm fingers slipping up under the hem of his pants to brush against his calves. He pulls Dean's leg up slightly to pull off his sneaker, then does the same with the other. Then he tilts his head back to look up at Dean. His gaze is thoughtful, measuring, and Dean's pulling him up before he knows what he's doing, pulling him into a kiss.

            Cas pulls away after only a moment, his hand closing around Dean's hip. Dean opens his eyes and finds Cas staring at him again, or maybe he never stopped, and then Cas's warm hand is sliding up his stomach to his chest and pushing him backward onto the bed.

            Dean's breath stutters. Castiel slides his hands under Dean's scrub top and the thin white Hanes shirt he always wears beneath it, skimming his palms up Dean's smooth stomach. Dean's abdominal muscles clench in anticipation. Cas drags the heel of his palm down them, watching, then lifts his gaze back to Dean's.

            "Off."

            Dean nearly jumps up off the mattress to fumble out of his shirts. He's breathless and flushed. Cas keeps his hips pinned to the bed as he does it, eyes dark and intent on the flex of Dean's stomach muscles as he sits up. The moment Dean's shirts are off, he pushes him back down with the heel of his palm to his sternum.

            Dean's cock is at adamant attention now, pressing against Cas through their scrubs where he's followed Dean onto the bed to straddle his thighs. Castiel pushes down just long enough to give it some friction, a teasing slide of his hips. Then he's pushing up on his knees and dragging his fingers down Dean's stomach to the drawstring on his pants. He unties it with his eyes hot on Dean's, doesn't look away as he dips his thumbs just under the waistband of Dean's boxers to press against the femoral pulses quivering in the junctures of his thighs.

            Dean's breath makes a desperate sound. He pushes his hips up to shove his pants off. Castiel catches him and pushes him back down, digging his thumbs warningly into the bounding pulses. Dean stares up at him for a moment, panting, and Castiel feels his mouth curving into a slow smile.

            Only then does he remove his eyes from Dean's, his gaze sliding syrup-slow down Dean's body to the press of his cock against the front of his pants. Slowly, so slowly, he moves his thumbs downward to drag the waistbands down. Dean's cock springs out like a drowning man from water. There's no time for him to be embarrassed by his eagerness before Cas is pressing his thumb just below the tip and swirling the precome glistening there around the head.

            Then he holds out an expectant hand. Dean stares at it dumbly for a minute before realizing what Cas wants. He scrabbles his hand blindly to the side for his nightstand drawer, for one of the condoms inside it. Castiel returns his eyes to Dean's once more as he tears it open and rolls it over Dean's erection, and they stay on him as Castiel lowers his mouth and engulfs him to the base.

            Dean goes rigid with the effort of not coming right then and there. Castiel's mouth curves around him in a smile, and Dean bucks against the sensation, unable to stop himself. Castiel's hands go vice-tight at his hips again, fingers bruising even as his thumbs rub encouraging circles over the wings of Dean's hipbones. Then he pushes forward a little with his mouth, till his nose is pressed right against Dean's skin, and drags a thumb down Dean's sac, and that's it, Dean's gone. He arches hard as he comes, and Castiel smiles as he pulls off, smiles as he presses his lips to Dean's hip.

            After a moment or two, he pulls back up, removes the condom and tosses it at the trash can. Dean stares at the ceiling, still breathing hard. Castiel stretches out next to him.

            He props his cheek on his hand, amused. "One would think that was your first blow job."

            "Every time's like the first time with you, Cas," Dean says with an eye roll, and the fond sarcasm in his voice feels good, feels like himself. For a long, long moment he just floats in it, grinning at the ceiling and then at the blue of Cas's eyes and the fucking mess that is his sex hair. Then he scoots down the bed and reaches for Cas's pants to return the favor.

 

\- o -

 

            "I want to come with you," Castiel says afterward.

            Dean barks a laugh into his pillow. "I think you already did."

            Castiel shoves him with his foot. Dean makes an indignant sound. "I meant to California. I know the way there, I know the area, I can take you to your interview."

            Dean lifts his head, propping it on his hand. "And then what? You stay there until school starts?"

            "No, it'll still be a little too early." Castiel brushes his fingertips idly back and forth across the swell of Dean's bare shoulder. "Your rotation ends Monday after next?"

            "Yeah," Dean says slowly.

            "So we could leave Tuesday night. Two days to drive there, two days in Palo Alto, two days to get back, and a few days to...bang the gongs, before Sam gets back."

            Dean eyes him. "Bang the gongs? Really, Cas?"

            Castiel affects a superior look. "Ash says it."

            "Yeah, he also makes people call him Dr. Badass."

            Castiel's superior look becomes smug. "You may call me that if you wish."

            Dean groans.

           

\- o -

 

            He assumed, with their last weeks of summer quickly funneling away, he and Dean would spend the weekend together. But when he wakes up Saturday morning, Dean is already moving around in the kitchen, dressed in jeans and a faded red Optimus Prime t-shirt.

            "Hey," he says when he sees Castiel in the doorway. "I've got something this morning, but I'll probably be back by five if you wanna do something?"

            "Where are you going?"

            Dean grabs the frozen waffle that pops out of the toaster and folds it into his mouth. "School stuff," he says vaguely, and perhaps running out of time is bringing Castiel's more unattractive qualities to the surface, because he says, "With who?"

            Dean makes a face. Looks at the door, then back. He swallows his waffle. "Look, you can't tell anyone."

            Castiel frowns but nods.

            "Ruby's applying to the nursing program. I promised to meet up with her this weekend to help her with her application."

            Castiel's frown lightens a little. "Would she like my help?" He imagines he has more experience with applications and essay-writing than Dean does.

            "Maybe later?" Dean picks up his ever-present laptop bag. "She's really private about this right now. The whole, you know...not wanting people to know if you don't get in."

            Castiel softens, remembering Dean asking him not to tell Sam about his interview at El Camino. "Of course."

            Dean grins, the quick expression like a sigh of relief. "Thanks, man." He darts in to suck a kiss from the side of Castiel's mouth, then heads out, locking the door behind him.

            Castiel sighs and looks around. His own laptop is sitting on the coffee table, next to Dean's abandoned power cord. He hadn't turned it off the night before, just put it in Sleep Mode, and the blue status light blinks at him slowly, rhythmically, an invitation.

            He goes to get changed.

           

\- o -

 

_She watched him from the corner of her eye, teeth bared like an afterthought. "You know who I am, don't y_

            "Mr. Cas!"

            Castiel's head snaps up. For a minute, he blinks stupidly at the library window in front of him, then focus on the face peeking over the opposite end of the table he commandeered. "Adam?"

            "Quit yelling, you dummy," comes a hiss, and Castiel looks up to see Jesse hurrying up to the table like he's been chasing Adam. He shoves him in the shoulder when he reaches him. "You're gonna get us kicked out!"

            Adam shoots him an angry-five-year-old look, then looks back at Castiel. "Whatcha writing?" he whispers loudly.

            Jesse shoves him again.

            Adam glares up at him. " _Ow!_ I'm gonna tell on you, Jesse!"

            "You better not," Jesse mutters. "Mom's busy."

            Castiel follows Jesse's eyes to the other side of the library's main reading area, to the group study rooms that line one wall. Now that he's looking, he can actually see the backs of Dean and Ruby's heads through the glass window on one of the doors, bent over a computer. He nearly laughs; it had never occurred to him that Dean and Ruby would meet at the library to work on her application.

            He looks back at the boys. Jesse's trying to pull Adam toward the children's section; Adam's holding onto Castiel's table and glaring bullets at Jesse.

            "You can sit here if you like," Castiel says quietly. Adam beams, and Jesse sighs.  He slouches into a chair as Adam squirms into the one next to Cas and leans over to see his laptop screen.

            "Adam," Jesse says under his breath. "Leave him alone."

            "It's all right." Castiel minimizes his Word document and returns to the journal article about osteosarcoma he'd been reading last night. Adam quickly loses interest, sliding back across the table and starting to kick Jesse under it.

            Jesse steadfastly ignores him, turning pages in his car magazine, until Adam starts pulling on his sleeve. "Jesse, can we go outside?"

            "No." Jesse pulls his arm back, turns a page.

            "Pleeeeaaaase?"

            "Be quiet," Jesse mutters without looking at him.

            Castiel watches over the top of his laptop as Adam resorts to glaring at Jesse with his cheeks puffed out in frustration. Jesse ignores him. Adam climbs out of his chair, looking toward Ruby and Dean. Jesse grabs him by the back of the shirt, pulling him back into his chair.

            "Mom's _busy_ ," he hisses.

            Adam glares more fiercely than ever.

            Castiel takes out his phone. **Ruby's progeny wish to go to the lake. I will escort them if she wishes.**

            He considers, then sends another one. **I am not stalking you.**

            He sees Dean twitch when the texts make his phone buzz in his pocket. He pulls it out and looks down at it, then twists around, scanning the library. When his eyes land on Cas, he makes a _what the hell?_ face. Cas shrugs, and tilts his head toward where Jesse is wrestling Adam back into his chair. Dean says something to Ruby, who looks up and then around, straight at Castiel. He can't read her expression, but after a moment, she says something to Dean and turns back around. Dean waves a _go on_ gesture at Castiel.

            "Adam, Jesse," he says lowly. They both go quiet, looking over at him. "Your mother has given permission for us to go outside so long as we are well-behaved."

            Jesse looks back at them. Dean gives him a thumbs-up.

            " _Yessss_!" Adam whispers, jumping up. Castiel barely has time to shove his laptop back into his bag before he's darting toward the check-out counter and the doors.

            "Adam!" he calls once they're outside the library proper, in the lobby near the restrooms and vending machines. "Don't you want to get something to feed the ducks with?"

            Adam turns back around, nearly slipping on the linoleum in his sneakers. "Jesse, can I have a quarter?"

            "Does it look like I have any quarters?"

            " _I_ have quarters," Cas says, going to the vending machine and inspecting the contents. He hands Adam a few coins. "Pick what you think the ducks would like most."

            "Stupid, ducks can't eat Cheetos," Jesse says, but it's too late, Adam's already pressed the button.

            He looks up at Jesse with guilty eyes, looking like he's ended the world. "Why can't they eat Cheetos?"

            "'Cause they don't have teeth!"

            Castiel frowns, tilting his head. "Are you sure?"

            Jesse gives him a Look.

            Castiel refuses to be intimidated. "Perhaps we should research this."

            They troop back inside the library, with Jesse heaving a loud sigh to make clear what he thinks of the expedition. The librarian in the children's section directs them to the shelf devoted to animal non-fiction, and Adam quickly finds a book with photos of ducks on the cover.

            Jesse just as quickly commandeers it: "You don't know how to use the index, genius."

            Adam glares at him and starts sifting through other books on his own.

            "Ha!" Jesse says after a moment. "Look."

            Castiel and Adam lean in to read. _Ducks do not have teeth, only thin bristles in their mouths to filter particles from the water. They swallow their food whole, and their gizzard helps them break it down._

            Jesse's wearing a smug look. "Told you."

            "I concede to your superior knowledge of ducks," Castiel says dryly. "Good work. We may now proceed outside."

            But Adam's found another book. "Ewww, look!" He points at the page he has open in his lap. "It says honey is just bumble bee throw-up!"

            "Sshhh!" Jesse hisses.

            Adam hugs the book to him and glares at Jesse harder. "I want to check it out."

            Jesse darts a look at the frowning librarian shelving books a few feet away. "You don't have a library card."

            " _You_ do."

            Jesse looks embarrassed. But he huffs and takes the book, slouching up to the check-out desk with Adam and Castiel in tow.

            The librarian scans his card. "Hmm."

            "What?" Jesse says.

            "Did you turn in _Magneto: Testament_ today? It's due."

            Jesse shuffles his feet. From behind him, Castiel can't see his face, but the back of his neck is turning pink. "Yeah," he mumbles.

            Castiel waits until they're walking out of the library again. "Magneto?"

            "He's an X-man!" Adam pipes up. "But he's evil."

            "No, he's not," Jesse says irritably, then clams up, glaring at his shoes.

            "Jesse likes comic books," Adam confides to Castiel. "He's gonna draw them someday and be famous. He's really good."

            "Shut up, Adam." Jesse shoves his chin deeper in his hoodie collar. But he looks pleased.

            Castiel buys a packet of cheese crackers they can crumble up to fed to the ducks. He hands them to Adam as they head down the hill to the lake, the ground squelching beneath their feet from the thunderstorm the night before. It's not even a whole minute before Adam's letting out a whoop and taking off after a flock of pigeons. He tosses Cheetos around for a while despite their research, and then he starts eating them himself, trotting back to Castiel and Jesse to offer them some.

            Castiel doesn't really like Cheetos, especially from a child's sweaty, orange-smeared hand, but he accepts it anyway, thanking Adam.

            "You don't have to eat it," Jesse says as Adam takes off after a pair of ducks.

            "That's all right." Cas puts it in his mouth, careful not to grimace. "How is your summer progressing, Jesse?"

            Jesse gives him a _seriously?_ look.

            Castiel smiles. "Sorry, that was rather stiff, wasn't it?"

            Jesse snorts. "Pretty sure stiff is your middle name."

            "Actually, it's Emmanuel."

            He makes a face. "You might wanna stick with stiff."

            "I'll take it under consideration."

            Jesse slants a look at him. "How do you even end up with a weird name like Castiel, anyway?"

            "My father writes stories about angels. It was his way of making the stories real, I suppose." Cas looks down at Jesse. "What about your name?"

            "It was my dad's name." Jesse doesn't share anymore than that, and Castiel doesn't ask, just looks back up to watch Adam chase pigeons.

            "So you wish to become an illustrator?" he asks after a moment.

            Jesse shrugs. "Not really. I wanna do something that makes money."

            "I suppose you've been told that you should do what you love, not what makes you rich?"

            "That's crap. Only people who've never been poor say that."

            Castiel studies him, tilting his head. Jesse glares back at him, then his eyes slide over and he shouts, "Adam, get away from the road!"

            Castiel looks up, sees with a start that Adam's crouching on the curb, poking the remains of an ant hill there. He berates himself for his poor child-watching skills as Adam stands up and runs back to them, twig in hand.

            He points across the street with his twig. "Jesse, what about those?"

            Jesse and Castiel look in the indicated direction. Adam's pointing at a small apartment building on the other side of the road, overlooking the lake. A sign in front of it says, "2-BR APT FOR RENT."

            "What about those?"

            "For _us_ ," Adam says.

            Jesse rolls his eyes. "She didn't mean now, dude."

            It's not the first time Castiel has felt like they're speaking in a separate language. He feels a pang, simultaneously jealous and wistful for the days when he and Alfie spoke their own language, incomprehensible to anyone but each other. There had been the summer they tried to learn Elvish, and the year Alfie wrote letters to Castiel in boarding school in nothing but Enochian. The headmaster had seen Castiel reading one of them and confiscated it, then called Naomi to notify her that Castiel was dabbling in Satanism. He smiles at the memory, of how hard he had been able to hear Alfie laughing in the background when he received his phone call from Naomi demanding to know what sort of things he was getting up to at school.

            "What's funny?"

            Castiel looks up at Jesse. "Nothing," he says, smile fading. Alfie is dead and Castiel is never going to hear him laugh again, never going to get a letter and open it up to see Alfie's handwriting inside. Ever.

            Jesse continues to eye him suspiciously. Castiel looks away from him, to Adam. "What did your mother say?"

            Adam waves his twig. "She said we're getting our own apartment! When she's in school--she's gonna get loads."

            " _Loans_ , dummy," Jesse says. "They're not real money. She has to pay them back."

            Adam looks suddenly worried. "But she said!"

            "'Course she said," Jesse retorts. "But we don't know if she's gonna get in. Don't get your hopes up, stupid."

            "She's going to," Adam says stubbornly. "And then she's gonna work with Mr. Dean and Mr. Cas."

            "Oh?" Castiel says.

            "She said so!" Adam drops his twig to grab Castiel's hand. "She wants to help people who don't have money to go to the doctor once she's a nurse practicer."

            Castiel tilts his head. He had no idea Ruby had such ambitions. But it makes tremendous sense. Ruby knows Missouri's patients even better than Dean does, knows who need haggling to be convinced to take their medications, knows exactly which billing codes to use to make sure the patient can obtain the care they need through the clinic's system, knows how to spot a hypoglycemic patient from a mile away. She's far more prepared to take care of patients than Castiel is. "Your mother will be an excellent nurse practitioner, Adam."

            Adam beams. Castiel smiles gently back, glancing over when he feels Jesse's eyes on him. The older boy is studying him, arms crossed, and when Castiel's eyes meet his, he scoffs and looks away.

             

\- o -

 

            "Dean," Castiel says as he closes his BMW's door behind him.

            " _Cas_ ," Dean mocks as he slides out of the Impala. He slides down his sunglasses to peer at Cas over them. "So you're adding stalking to your resume, huh."

            "I said I _wasn't_ stalking you."

            "And I didn't believe you." There's laughter in Dean's voice. He grabs his laptop from the back seat and heads up the apartment stairs. "You've got Cheetos on your mouth, by the way."

            Castiel rubs his lip and looks down, seeing the smear of orange on his fingers as he follows Dean. "You know I'm working on that essay for the clinic."

            "I do know that."

            "You were going to be my third interview subject."

            Dean stops, so abruptly that Castiel walks into him. "Was I?"

            "If you agreed, yes."

            Dean seems to absorb this, then starts up the stairs once more. "Sounds like you changed your mind."

            "Yes. I think Ruby's situation may be a better fit, thematically."

            Dean unlocks the apartment door with a snort. "Gee, Cas, don't think of us as human beings or anything."

            "Of course I do." Castiel follows him inside, toeing off his shoes. "However, some things are all about delivery."

            "Like labor."

            " _Dean_."

            He snickers. Castiel pushes him onto the couch and sits on him, reaching for his most recent notebook where it's crammed between the cushions. "I thought you would be effective because being helped at the clinic influenced your own wishes to help people. But in a way, that's a repetition of the angle I'm using with Frank." He tilts his head back to look at Dean, who is listening, one of his thumbs hooked through Castiel's belt loop. "Ruby differs in that she demonstrates one doesn't need to have been a patient at the clinic in order to be inspired by its mission and wish to continue it. Does that make sense?"

            Dean nods against the back of Castiel's head, chin rubbing against his hair. "Yeah, I see how it's different." He's quiet for a second. "You're really good at this writing stuff, Cas."

            Castiel snorts.

            "I'm serious, man. You said I get to read this, right? When you're done with it."

            "Of course." Castiel puts his hand over Dean's, pulling it out of his belt loop and to somewhere more interesting.

            Dean's voice laughs and pushes his mouth closer to Castiel's ear. "You ever going to let me read anything else you write?"

            "Mmm," Castiel says, and pushes into Dean's hand instead of answering.

 

\- o -

 

_"Have you forgotten what he did, Samandriel?"_

_In the chair, she always asked it, as if he could possibly have forgotten what Castiel did, like it was possible to forget the stench and the squelch and the tepid suction of all that blood, the cruel shock of red after the sterile white that had been his surroundings for so long._

_Purgatory was nothing to what Heaven was, after Castiel's ascension, bodies everywhere, feathers covering the ground instead of leaves, fuzzy down mixing with blood-soaked soil, delicate white vanes snapping beneath your feet wherever he stepped. The horror seeping in just like the blood: How could anyone short of Lucifer kill so many, rip brothers and sisters apart like a child plucking the legs from ants?_

_How could Samandriel want to forget that? Dishonorable, to the brothers and sisters they lost, to wish that atrocity purged from his mind. Weak._

_Suspicious._

_Some nights he fell asleep beside the fire, his vessel's head nodding forward onto his chest against the blood-stiffened fabric of its collar, its tie, dark sour red like Hell. He dreamt of waking with yellow eyes, the Azazel to Castiel's Morningstar, here in the exile of Purgatory, the first of a new Grigori._

_He gasped awake to black night, and red-yellow eyes watching him from across the fire, over the dying embers, and the heat that rushed through him only made him sweat harder._

 

\- o -

 

            Dr. Marv is emerging from the radiology office when Castiel arrives to shadow him Sunday night. "Castiel," he exclaims. "You've arrived just in time, follow me."

            Castiel shoves his bag under the counter in the office and trots after Marv, following him into a part of the radiology area he's never been in before. There's a glass-walled room full of machinery and an exam table, occupied by a patient and two people in gowns and masks.

            "CT-guided pericardiocentesis," Marv says, settling into a chair in front of a monitor like the ones in his office. "Do you know anything about cardiac tamponade?"

            Castiel shakes his head.

            "Something--heart attacks, wounds, cancer--makes blood leak into the sac containing the patient's heart. The blood compresses the heart--" Marv makes a motion like he's squeezing a grapefruit--"so it can't beat pump adequately. Blood starts to back up in the body."

            He turns back to the computer, typing in a few commands and opening what Castiel recognizes as a CT image. "We can stick a needle inside the sac to draw out the blood so the heart can pump properly again."

            Castiel frowns. "That sounds dangerous."

            "It certainly can be!" Marv sounds pleased Castiel noticed this. "That's where I come in. I watch the pericardium and heart via CT so that I can let the doctor know if he's pushing the needle too far in."

            Castiel nods, watching intently. He doesn't ask any questions as he watches, listening to Marv speak with the doctor in the room through the intercom system as he works, instruct him to pull back or stop there, right there. The procedure doesn't take long at all, it feels like only a few minutes before Marv is pushing away from the computer and saying, "All right, back to the dungeon."

            There's a bounce in the doctor's step as they walk, Castiel walking more slowly to accommodate Marv's shorter legs. "That's what I call _action,_ " he exclaims with satisfaction, spreading his arms wide. He plops into his swivel chair. "I promise I love my job, Castiel, but sometimes you need to hold the scalpel instead of the pen, you know?"

            "You held neither," Castiel points out.

            Marv cuts him an exasperated glance. "It's a metaphor, my boy." He pulls himself back into his desk. "Sometimes it's not enough to be the one writing down what's happening, you want to be the one with the hand in fixing it, you see?"

            Castiel considers this.

 

\- o -

 

            When Ruby walks into the clinic and sees him Tuesday morning, she stops short. "What."

            Castiel holds the steaming Starbucks cup out to her. "I wish to interview you."

            Her eyes narrow further. "Why."

            "To find out how the clinic influenced your ambitions to become a nurse practitioner."

            Ruby lets out a disbelieving sound and pushes past him to the stack of charts, throwing her purse into the cabinet. "Are you stalking me through my kids?"

            "It was an incidental discovery," he says apologetically. "Adam, as you know, is..."

            "A motor mouth," she says. "Ugh. Gimme the coffee."

            Castiel hands it over. Ruby takes a long gulp, grimacing at the scalding heat, then sets it down. "It's not exactly a long story. You go through some shit, you wanna help other people not have it as bad as you did. The end."

            Castiel writes. "More, please."

            Ruby makes a frustrated noise at him. He squints at her.

            She glares harder. "You know how Becky said they wanted Dean for that new ARNP job here?" she says. "He doesn't want it, but I do. I wanna...wanna work with Missouri and be able to do more for people than...check the dipstick in their urine samples. People come in here, and they're already messed up, right? We're all already messed up. You've got your body, like your DNA or whatever, and it's all written out already, when you're gonna die and what bad stuff's gonna happen to you before you kick the bucket."

            She takes another gulp of coffee. "I mean, Rufus--you know Rufus. He was diabetic with kidney failure, and when he first came in we thought, shit, he's gonna be dead in less than a year, 'cause Medicare's dragging its heels on getting him dialysis, and no nephrologist is gonna see a guy who can't pay, but Missouri gets him these meds through Bobby, and Dean just keeps nagging at him until he finally stops eating all the shit his kidneys can't process anymore, and then Becky finds this kidney specialist who's willing to see him for free until the Medicare comes through." She laughs, sudden and jarring. "And guess what? The old fucker's still kicking."

            Ruby stops laughing and shoves her hands in her pockets, looking suddenly uncomfortable again. "I guess what I mean is... They changed the story for him. They changed _everything_. And I wanna be part of that." She eyes Castiel, curls her lip. "That good enough for you?"

            Castiel stares at her. She shifts under the regard. Castiel remembers what Dean says about his staring, how it creeps some people out. "Ruby."

            She shifts again.

            "Thank you." He isn't sure how to express how deeply what she just said pierced him, how to thank her for it. He rocks forward on one heel, goes to take her hand, goes for her shoulder instead. "As I told your sons, you're going to make an excellent nurse practitioner."

            Ruby looks at his hand on her shoulder. Then at him, and she smirks. "Hell yeah I will."

 

\- o -

 

            Dean bobs his head, humming [Kansas](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQbNcOWj9_M) under his breath as he digs his hands into the bowl of hamburger on the counter. All is right in the world. He's been craving cheeseburger meatballs all week, and he finally has time to make some before he leaves for class tonight. The meat's still raw, and it still smells fucking _fantastic_. Cas is gonna blow an aneurysm when he tastes the finished product.

            He grins suddenly. "Think quick, Cas--where are berry aneurysms most likely to form?"

            Cas makes a grumpy sound from his spot on the couch. He's been working on the Helping Hands essay since they got home from the clinic an hour ago, slouching progressively further down on the couch as he frowns at his laptop. "I don't care."

            "Aw, don't be like that, baby." Dean considers the meat, then drizzles a little more oil in. Where's the cilantro? "Give it a break and come handle some meat with me."

            That gets him a glance. "Appealing as that sounds, I want to finish this before we leave for Palo Alto." There's a short pause, as he goes back to glaring at his laptop. Then, grudgingly: "The Circle of Willis."

            Dean barks out laughter. Cas cracks an unwilling grin. Then Dean's phone buzzes.

            "Shit." He looks down at his hands, wrist-deep in the hamburger. "Can you get that?"

            Castiel hooks his leg over the back of the couch to keep from falling off as he levers himself upside down to reach for Dean's phone. It's at the other edge of the coffee table. He reads it upside down. "Benny thinks his badge is in your car again."

            "Are you serious?!" Dean growls low in his throat, good mood evaporating. "I'm gonna fucking kill Charlie."

            "What does Charlie have to do with it?"

            "She keeps nicking Benny's badge and hiding it in my car, that's what!"

            Cas blinks. "Why?"

            "Because she's Charlie." Dean grimaces and pulls his glistening hands out of the meat and glancing at the clock. "When does Benny need it by? I've got class tonight."

            "I can take it to him."

            Dean does a double-take. "Seriously?"

            Castiel gives him that barely-a-curve-of-his-mouth smile, closing his computer. "Seriously."

            "Dude. You're the fucking best."

 

\- o -

           

            Benny's badge is in the foot well of Dean's back seat, which is pretty much the same place it was that first afternoon Castiel rode with Dean. But also lodged under the seat is something Castiel completely forgot about: the manila envelope from his father.

            After a moment's hesitation, he picks it up and puts it in his own backseat before going to drop Benny's badge off at the hospital.

            He doesn't think about it again until the next night, when he's lying on the couch in the half-awake, half-asleep daze he's gotten used to falling into since he started shadowing Dr. Marv on his night shifts three times a week. The only vaguely interesting thing on TV is _So You Think You Can Dance,_ but Dean's at school taking a final, and he might eviscerate Castiel if he watches it without him. Castiel settles on an old rerun of _Cold Case_ instead, and when the blonde woman on the screen shakes something out of an evidence envelope onto an interrogation table, he thinks of the envelope in his car.

            As a Novak, he's usually good about thinking whims out before he acts on them. But tonight he heads down the apartment stairs to his car before he can think too much about what he's doing, or why. He returns to the apartment with the thick envelope in a sweaty hand and drops down at the coffee table to bend back the metal prongs and pull out the papers inside.

            It's not the sort of manuscript he's used to seeing. It's handwritten, for one thing: several stapled-together sheaves of intermingled notebook paper and copy paper and even legal pad paper, as though it was written on whatever happened to be available at the time. That should have tipped him off, but it's not until he reads the first line that he realizes what these papers really are.

            _We used to go to McDonald's every week. Back when there were slides and ball pits to play in, and the boys loved it, or I told myself they did, because it was the only place I could take them that they would keep themselves occupied while I sat and wrote. Castiel always with the Legos on the corner table, frowning down at them in his hands, and Alfie hanging from the meshwork of the ball pit by his fingers, calling Castiel to come in and play with him. Naomi would have killed me for taking them there, she called those play places incubation pits. I told the boys that going there would be our little secret so they wouldn't tell her, and I think Castiel suspected what I was doing, even then, always with those solemn eyes, but Alfie loved it, loved having a secret just between us, even if I never came to watch him come down the slide the way I always promised him I_  

            Castiel puts the papers down.

 

 

 

 

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

**rating:** M

 **warnings:** Grief, body horror, drug and alcohol abuse, caretaking, references to sex.

 **disclaimer:** Opinions espoused here are not necessarily those of the author.

 **notes:** The phrase "bastard wing" refers to the alula, which is the projecting, "freely moving first digit" on the front side of a bird's wing, comparable to a thumb ([Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alula)).  


 

****

**11.0**

_"I didn't see the point in troubling a good man with bad news."_

\-- "The End," 5.04

 

            Cas is sitting on the couch when Dean gets home. He looks up, gaze dark and blistering, and that's all there's time for, just one hot, swift look before he's on his feet and kissing Dean hard.

            He slants his mouth over Dean's, opening his own and taunting Dean with his tongue until Dean spins them around, slams him into the wall. Cas hooks his leg around Dean's to shove Dean's thigh between his, hard, and grind against it even harder.

            That's when Dean's upstairs brain catches up to his downstairs one. He pulls away, panting. "Cas, what is this? What's wrong?"

            Cas is wild-eyed, bruise-lipped. "I thought we promised not to _fix_ each other, Dean." There's something ugly in his voice that's as repelling as it is hypnotizing, and Dean's torn between giving Cas what he wants if that's what he needs and knowing it won't help in the long run.

            And as he struggles with himself, staring into Cas's pupil-black eyes, Cas shoves away with a _tch_. Grabs his keys and heads back outside, slides into his car without looking back.

            Dean watches him go.

 

\- o -

 

            He hasn't slept alone in so long that it doesn't feel familiar, anymore, to turn over in the bed and find the sheet next to him cool and empty. But some part of him has been waiting for this, for Cas to leave, a part that creeps back out and settles over him heavy and numb like a windshield, like glass that will keep him dry till the rain stops, even if he didn't manage to roll the window up before he got wet.

            His eyes are just drifting closed when he hears a sound like a key in the front door. It's quiet, careful, and as Dean freezes, pretending to be asleep, it takes him back to memories of his dad, coming home late at night, clumsy and trying to be quiet so as not to wake him and Sam.

            The front door eases shut. It's several heartbeats before Dean feels the barely-there whisper of air as the bedroom door is carefully opened, the strong odor carried on it. It's not vomit or booze but something fruity, a strong citrus, and Dean's so distracted trying to figure out what it is that he doesn't realize Cas is crawling into the bed until his forehead pushes between Dean's shoulder blades.

            He flinches. Which means the game's up. Cas knows he's awake.

            But neither of them say anything. Whole minutes inch past marked only by Cas's slow, deep breaths.

            Finally, he shifts and brings his hand up to Dean's shoulder. It just barely rests there, on the curve of his bicep, as if not daring to be any heavier or travel any lower. Dean relaxes into it, pushing his foot back to hook between Cas's.

            "You smell really funky," he says into the darkness.

            "Ellen made me clean the bathrooms," Cas tells his back. "She said it was the only thing I was good for when I was pitching such a priss-fit."

            Dean smiles a little into the dark. There's no way Cas can see it, but maybe he feels it, somehow, because he pushes up onto his knees behind Dean and skims his hand carefully across the curve of Dean's shoulder, up his neck and jaw until just the very tips of his fingers rest against Dean's stubbled cheek. Then he leans down to kiss him. His mouth is soft, gentle suction, like he means to kiss away the marks he'd left behind that afternoon: parting his lips around Dean's one by one to apply gentle pressure, then pulling away just far enough for them to breathe into each other's mouths. It feels like he's asking permission, like he needs to know whether this is okay for Dean or not.

            Dean reaches up and closes a hand in Cas's shirt, pulls him down as gently as he's always done, and maybe there's a bit too much of his eight-year-old self in this, his seventeen-year-old self, the ones that opened up and gave and gave to keep what had happened from happening again, even though he'd learned before that it was a hole that just kept sucking, that never filled no matter how much dirt you shoveled into it.

            He lies awake in the darkness long after Cas falls asleep against him, hand tight around his wrist.

 

\- o -

 

_"What's going to happen to me once we're out?"_

_The angel looked at him. Joseph kept his eyes on the kindling he was trying to light: Looking at Samandriel was too much like looking at one of the high school kids he used to mentor in Big Brothers, Big Sisters. The cracking voice, the wide eyes, the zits sprinkled across the forehead and chin, their redness made all the more striking by the blood still caked on the face and the striped uniform shirt. Looking at the angel's vessel made Joseph feel like he should be protecting Samandriel, not the other way around, and the compulsion made him feel simultaneously pissed off and powerful._

_The angel sighed, as if it could hear his thoughts. "Your soul will ascend to Heaven."_

_"What if I don't want to go?"_

_Another sigh, as if to say,_ We've discussed this before. _"Your body is dead."_

_"So was Abel's," Joseph said. "Your brother brought him back, didn't he?"_

_A flash of anger: Samandriel's fingers flexing as sparks hissed between Joseph's hands. The kindling began to glow, then burn._

_"Look at my wings," the angel said._

_Joseph's eyes slid to them, almost involuntarily. He had taken a forensic anthro class his sophomore year, the professor cranky and disgusted by the portrayal of corpses on television. Bones aren't really white, he told them, they're greasy, they're yellow, and that was what the bare, stripped bones of Samandriel's wings were. Naked of feather and fascia and skin, except where the Cage had seared them to it, foul black clumps embedded with bloody matted down, like the pictures Joseph had seen of dermoid cysts, full of hair and bone and teeth._

_When he looked at Samandriel's wings, he didn't think of a high school student at all._

_The angel stepped closer. "What you see," it says. "It is nothing to the state of my Grace. The damage it has sustained."_

_It took another step. It was so close now that the greasy ridge of its bastard wing curved over both their shoulders, close enough for Joseph to smell the spoiled meat stench from it, hamburger left out in the sun. "Do you understand?"_

_"That's not my fault." Joseph swallowed, hated the way his voice trembled. "I didn't_ ask _you to come into the Cage for me."_

_"No." It turned away, naked wings slipping back down to hang listlessly to the ground once more, dragging in the dead leaves. "You didn't."_

_"Then_ why _?"_

_"Because," the angel said quietly. "I know what it's like to be the brother left behind."_

 

\- o -

 

            On Tuesday night, Castiel pulls his BMW into the ambulance bay. Dean's already there, waiting in the jeans and t-shirt he took to work with him to change into after his shift was over. He slides into the passenger seat, sliding his bag between his feet, and they're not even out of the ambulance bay before his right knee starts bouncing nervously.

            Castiel eyes it. Then he nods at the radio console. "Why don't you pick something to listen to?"

            Dean fiddles with Castiel's satellite radio for a little while. But even once he finds a station that sounds like one of his Pandora channels the fidgeting doesn't stop. He stares out the window, at other cars' taillights as they pass them in the darkness, and worries hangnails into his fingers.

            Castiel finally pulls onto the shoulder an hour and a half into their drive. It takes Dean a minute to notice, he's staring into space so intently, but when he does, his eyes fly to Cas in worry. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

            "I'm fine. But I think it might do you good to drive."

            Dean's forehead creases. Castiel persuaded him yesterday that they should take the BMW for the trip, as it had better gas mileage than the Impala. He thinks now that may have been a mistake. If Dean can focus even part of his concentration on driving, that part of his mind won't be thinking of all the mistakes he could make in his interview.

            "Me?" he says stupidly. "Why?"

            "Because you've given yourself three hangnails and we're not even in Colorado yet." Castiel checks the mirrors, pushes open his door and goes around to the passenger door. Dean still hasn't moved, so Castiel opens the door and squeezes his hip in against Dean's until Dean has no choice but to sidle over, climb awkwardly over the gearshift to the driver's seat.

            He cranks the seat back a little, looking slightly nonplussed by this turn of events but also tremendously better, sitting behind the wheel. His knee has stilled, and his wrists rest comfortably on the steering wheel, waiting.

            He looks at Castiel once more. "You sure?"

            "Positive." Castiel buckles himself in, then leans forward to pull from his bag the papers he printed out to edit. "I claim control of the radio, however."

            "Oh, hell no!"

 

\- o -

 

            When they finally stop at a motel around two in the morning, Dean zombie-shuffles to the bed and drops into it, beginning to snore almost immediately. Castiel tugs off his shoes and pulls the blanket over him, then settles in with his laptop.

            He goes to bed perhaps an hour later, and wakes up sometime later, blinking blearily at a block that says 5:37 a.m. The bed is empty next to him. He twists to the side to see Dean's silhouette at the table, reading something by the light of his cell phone.      

            "Dean," he says, all gravel and drowsiness.

            "I couldn't sleep," Dean whispers. "Go back to sleep, Cas."

            Cas makes an authoritative sound like " _you_ go back to sleep" that might have been more convincing if he wasn't stuffing his face back into the pillow as he made it. He hears a chuckle and the rustle of papers, and then he's out again.

 

\- o -

 

            They pull into Palo Alto around two in the afternoon Thursday. Castiel took over driving for this last leg of the trip, since he's familiar with the area, and Dean looks torn between excitement and anxiety, looking out the window at all the stores Castiel points out with his hands sitting white-knuckled in his lap.

            He cracks a grin when Castiel points out the movie theatre he and Sam go to sometimes. "You mean you actually drag Sammy away from his books long enough to have some fun?"

            "They're usually documentaries, but yes," Castiel deadpans, and isn't sure what to make of the expression of relief that flits across Dean's face. He keeps up a running commentary, trying to keep Dean distracted, until they reach Andy Gallagher's house.

            He doesn't look impressed by the two-story house with its overgrown lawn and pair of black boxers hanging off the mailbox. "This is your dorm?"

            "No, this is a friend's house." Castiel kills the ignition and gets out of the car to stretch, feeling surprised by how invigorated he feels to be _home_. Palo Alto's air feels lighter somehow, cleaner and brighter, and he grins at Dean, over the roof of the car. "C'mon."

            He grabs his bag and heads up the front steps leading to the porch. Dean follows more slowly, eyeing the Solo cups scattered across the lawn.

            The sounds of blaster whines and dying aliens are audible through the front door. Castiel knocks on it firmly, hard enough to be heard through the gunfire. It still takes two more rounds of knocking before someone insides goes, "Oh shit, someone's at the door!"

            There's scuffling, then a guy saying, "Dude, did you order pizza?" over his shoulder as he pulls the door open. He blinks at Castiel. "You're not the pizza man."

            "I am not." Castiel sees Andy over the other guy's shoulder, cinching his robe as he trudges down the stairs, yawning. "Hello, Andy."

            His yawn turns into wide eyes the minute he sees Castiel. "Cas-man!" he shouts, coming forward. "Dude, I didn't think you were coming till Thursday!"

            Castiel accepts Andy's pungent one-armed hug. "It is Thursday."

            "Oops, my bad." Andy grins lopsidedly. "Just, uh...gimme like half an hour to decon Anson's room for you."

            "There might still be a girl in there," one of the guys playing a video game in the living room says.

            Andy rolls his eyes. "All right, we'll find out."

            Dean is definitely sending off alarmed vibes now. Castiel takes his hand. "I'm going to go show Dean around campus. We'll be back--"

            "Dude, wait! This is Sam's brother?!" Andy exclaims.

            Castiel has forgotten his manners. "Dean, this is Andy Gallagher. We share several classes. Andy, Dean Winchester."

            "Your brother's huge, man," Andy says as he shakes Dean's hand. And keeps shaking it, seeming to forget he has it. Dean raises his eyebrows at Castiel, who rolls his eyes and detaches their hands.

            "That kid got me through Philo with Visyak," Andy proclaims, unperturbed by Castiel's interference. "I owe him, like, a life debt. I'm the Chewie to his Solo, except he's taller."

            Ah. Castiel understands that reference now.

            "Gotcha," Dean says. "Well, thanks, man, for letting us stay with you."

            "No problem, dude. I'm gonna go clear out that room for you." Andy heads back upstairs.

            Dean waits until they're back in the car to give Castiel a _, Seriously?!_ look.

            "Think of him as Stanford's version of Ash," Castiel says. "Except in literature rather than IT."

            Dean looks unimpressed. "So you're telling me that guy's a literary genius?"

            "Well. In addition to writing robot porn on the internet. We all have our vices, I suppose."

            Dean just raises an eyebrow at him. When Castiel only smiles, he huffs and turns to look out the window, muttering something about Californian weirdos. "Where're we headed, then?" he asks after a moment, watching the school buildings roll past.

            Castiel turns into one of the student parking lots. "I thought I'd show you around campus." He pauses before turning off the car, glancing over at Dean. "Unless you'd rather prepare for your interview?"

            Dean shakes his head. "It's still early. Lead the way, man."

 

\- o -

           

            Castiel focuses mostly on Sam's favorite places: the 24-hour study room in the J. Henry Meyer library he favors for studying, the smaller Education library he prefers when he's working on papers, the hole-in-the-wall pita shop they go to sometimes between classes, the bus stops Sam waits at to get to his usual haunts. They go to Sam's favorite vegan place for a late lunch, and Dean complains about the menu choices but orders the spicy barbecue chickpea burger that Castiel tells him is Sam's favorite dish anyways.

            "You know," Castiel says in amusement as he watches Dean eye the burger with trepidation, "for someone who works in healthcare, you have appalling dietary habits."

            Something flickers across Dean's face. He laughs and stirs his soda with his straw, eyes sliding away.

            "I was joking, Dean."

            "No, it's true, though." Dean doesn't stop smiling. "Well, maybe if I come up here I'll learn to start eating rabbit food like everyone else."

            That comes too close to the precipice of what's going to happen in the future. Castiel clears his throat. "Do you want to see our dorm?"

            Too late he realizes that that's not changing the subject at all, taking Dean to the place where Castiel and Sam will be living next year. But Dean's already saying, "Yeah, that'd be great."  
 

\- o -

 

            "The hell is this, man? The Hilton?" he exclaims as they walk inside Sam and Cas's dormitory building twenty minutes later. There's an espresso machine in the lobby, across from a huge leather sectional in front of a flat-screen TV showing some cooking show in hi-def. "These ceilings are like twenty feet tall!"

            "They had to be to accommodate Sam," Castiel quips. Dean shoots him a grin.

            "Oh my gosh, Cas!"

            Castiel turns. A familiar blonde girl is jumping to her feet behind the information desk.

            "Jess? What are you doing here?"

            "I got a job RAing over summer term!" She enfolds him into a hug, grinning. "What're _you_ doing here?"

            "Just--showing someone around--" He turns to find Dean. He has his hands in his pockets as he rocks back on his heels. It takes Castiel a moment to recognize the meaning of the movement, because the sentiment is so very foreign to him, in Dean--Dean is being _bashful_. It's more worrying than endearing, and Castiel's eyes narrow as he looks at him, then turns back to Jess. "This is Dean. Dean, this is Jess." He gives Dean a meaningful look, and Dean's face turns knowing; Castiel mentioned Sam's crush on their drive to campus.

            "Hey," Dean says, some of his usual easiness returning as he extends his hand. "Great to meet you."

            "You too!" she says. "Are you considering coming here, or just...?"

            The phone rings. "Ooh, hold that thought!" she says, and runs back behind the desk. "Manzanita Park, Jess speaking."

            " _That's_ Jess?" Dean mutters through the side of his mouth. "She's way out of Sammy's league."

            Castiel gives him a _She is not_ look.

            Jess returns before Dean can counter with a look of his own. "Anyway!" she says. "Sorry about that. Castiel, I meant to ask--how's Sam doing? I was thinking of him the other day, I know he was really bummed about having to go back to Kansas for the summer."

            Castiel feels Dean stiffen beside him.

            "He's doing well," he says carefully. "Actually, this is--"

            "A really awesome pool table," Dean says, moving to the game on the other side of the sectional. "Do you ever play, Jess?"

            She laughs. "No, I'm more of an air hockey girl myself. Do you guys wanna play? I could get the cues out from the office for you."

            "Nah," Dean says. "Thanks, though." He looks at Castiel. "You ready to head to our next stop?"

            Castiel can take a hint. "Yes, of course." He turns to say goodbye to Jessica, who lets out a sudden "Wait!" and races around the counter again.

            "I forgot!" she says, digging in one of the cabinets. "Cas, we got a package for you like literally right after you left for the summer. It's just one of those care packages your parents can buy your for finals--do you want to take it now?"

            "Sure," Castiel says distractedly. His eyes are on Dean as he takes it; he wants to take Dean's hand, but Dean's shoulder blades are sharp beneath his shirt, exuding _I need my personal space right now._

            They walk back outside, into the bright sunshine. Castiel carefully keeps a distance between them, feeling guilty for his own complicity in Sam's reluctance to leave Stanford for Lawrence at Christmas time and then for the summer break, for all the times he sympathized with Sam over not wanting to leave the freedom of Palo Alto for the constriction of family. He wonders if Dean is thinking the same thing, too, if the resentment he held toward Castiel at the beginning of the summer is sinking back in, for he's clearing his throat and saying, "Hey, you mind if I find my own way back?"

            "Of course." Castiel shifts the package under his arm. "Do you remember where Andy's house is?"

             "Yeah." Dean's already starting away, walking backward. "I just... I think I want to stretch my legs some more. It was a long drive."

            "I understand." Castiel stays where he is, waiting, and eventually Dean's the one who has to turn around, turn his back on Castiel as he walks away. He looks younger from this new vantage point, the line of his back in his black t-shirt and his jeans, the bright sunlight turning his hair more golden than brown, and Castiel wonders if it's because everyone looks younger, on a college campus, or because of some vulnerability peeking through, making Dean's steps less confident than they are in Lawrence, in the clinic and the hospital.

            When he's disappeared around the corner of Kimball Hall, Castiel finally moves. There's an oak tree at the very edge of Manzanita Field where he often goes to read assignments for class, and at this time of day, its shadow stretches across the field toward a few girls throwing a Frisbee back and forth. Castiel settles against the rough trunk, pushing his foot against one of the exposed roots, and thinks of the last time he sat here, reading a used copy of _Jesus' Son_ and wondering if Professor Milton really liked the book or if Professor Crowley had just told Castiel that she liked it to fuck with him. Alfie had been the last thing from his mind, then, nothing in his mind but vague thoughts about where to go for dinner that night and whether he had enough clothes to get him through finals week without having to do laundry.

            He exhales and tilts his head back. Stares at the sky for a long time.

            Then he pushes back to his feet and heads back to the car, and Andy's.

 

\- o -

 

            It's not until he's hanging Dean's interview suit on the closet door in Ansen's room that he even remembers the care package. The ones his mom sends him for finals week usually have mini blueberry muffins in them, and if nothing else, he thinks Dean will like them.

            But when he finds the package under the duffel bags he tossed under the bed, the address isn't the usual printed Stanford Residential Hall Association one. It's handwritten. In a handwriting he hasn't seen in months, now.

            He rips it open so hastily the package splits right down the middle. Objects spill out onto the blue comforter. Packets of Starbucks Ready Brew packets, the Colombia roast that Castiel likes, with a Post-It note stuck to them that says _Drink responsibly!_ in the same handwriting as the address. A pencil eraser topper shaped like a bumble bee-- _because even the great Castiel makes math mistakes_ , says the Post-It note stuck to it. One of those cheap two-pack pine tree air fresheners-- _because if you have time to shower you're not studying hard enough_ , and a pair of wrist braces-- _because I know that even though you're supposed to be studying you're probably WRITING... WEAR THESE, DOCTOR'S ORDERS._

            There's still something stuck in the package. Castiel shakes it out, his stomach a tense, fluttering thing inside him.

            It's a book. Not _Torn and Frayed_ , the way he half expects when he feels the familiar embossed "Carver Edlund" on the cover. Instead, it's one he still hasn't read yet, the cover depicting a woman in commando gear and a man in a military uniform. _**Pac-Man Fever.**_

            There's no Post-It note on it. Just a folded sheet of notebook paper stuck between the well-thumbed pages. Castiel pulls it out carefully.

            _I know you don't read Dad's books anymore, but I think you'd like this one. Maybe give it a chance?_

_Love,_

_Alfie_

            Castiel stares at the note for a long moment. Then he eases the book open.

            The notes start on the very first page. _1951?! Please tell me he meets his granddad!_

They cover the margins of the pages. There's a smiley face drawn next to "This is why we don't have nice things." A doodled ebola virus next to "He was found dead yesterday, his insides liquefied." A sarcastic _how convenient_ written next to "Are you saying we can make and receive phone calls from here and nobody can track us?" It's like reading the books with Alfie all over again, the way he used to stop and make comments every other minute like the motormouth he was until Castiel told him if he didn't shut up Castiel was going to leave and read on his own. He finds himself laughing, and then crying, and then he gets to the second to last page.

            "I love you."

            "I know."

            _You'd know what this meant if you'd ever watched Star Wars, you assbutt._

            Castiel goes still. His heart pounds, his ears pound, his very blood pounds with realization, a roar in his skull.

            Alfie's notes aren't to himself, or to Chuck, or even to no one in particular.

            They're to Castiel.

            Something inside him breaks.

            He stumbles to his feet. He makes it out of the bedroom, and there's people downstairs, red cups and sweet smoke. He takes the drink someone hands him, is finished with his second by the time Andy finds him and drags him into the kitchen, howling, "Show us your mad skillz, barkeep!" There's a drag off something sweet and spicy somewhere in there, and mixing drinks at the island in the kitchen by memory more than anything, his mind following the edges of the swirl the joint had dragged through his brain like a toothpick through marble cake batter, and eventually hands start pushing drinks back into his hand instead of taking them from him, and it all becomes pretty hazy, after that.

 

\- o -

 

            It's dark by the time Dean finds his way back to Andy's house. He's sweaty and pissed at himself, at Sam, at Cas, and knows he doesn't really have the right to any of that anger, but somehow that only makes it worse, the guilt chasing the resentment, like drinking liquor after beer. And getting back to Andy's house, with cars filling the street and the lawn and music blaring from the windows, doesn't help.

            He pushes inside, brushing against sweaty shoulders and dancing girls. He feels naked and he hates it, feels like he's inside every college movie he's ever seen, music playing and people holding Solo cups everywhere.

            "Yo, Dean!"

            He turns in the living room, sees Andy in the kitchen doorway. He's holding something rolled in his hand, looks even more relaxed than he had that afternoon, though he's wearing clothes, now. "You looking for a Shurley Temple?"

            He laughs uproariously at his own joke. Dean sees Cas's unmistakable hair over his shoulder and pushes past Andy, entering the kitchen. Cas is standing on the other side of the island, leaning heavily against it as he pours orange juice into a glass full of ice and something else. A bottle of cranberry juice and another of Smirnoff sit at the edge of the table, and he nearly knocks them over as he pushes the glass toward the girls sitting there. He sways, blinking vaguely, not seeming to hear when they laugh out thank yous, and grabs the edge of the island with one hand. He grabs a bottle at his elbow with the other, tilting his head back for a long swallow.

            Dean moves past the girls. "Cas?"

            The smell from Andy's joint is strong in his nose and mouth. It gets stronger when Cas looks up and sees him and pushes away from the counter to pull Dean in for an open-mouthed kiss. He's smiling, suddenly, and he tastes musty and spicy-sweet and booze-sour all at the same time, and Dean pulls back. "Cas?"

            He's reaching for Dean's fly. "Dean."

            "No-- _Cas_." Dean shoves his hands away, his eyes flying to the girls watching them with interest. A flush sweeps up his neck, his face. He feels trapped, completely out of his depth, realizing that here he is, here's the rich college kid he's been reminding himself that Cas is all summer.

            Cas reaches for his jeans again, and Dean hates himself for flinching. "I said no, Cas!"

            Cas pulls back. There's something dark in his eyes, something that makes Dean freeze. Guilty, like the hands reaching for him aren't about what Cas wants, they're about what he _needs_ , and Dean should be willing to give it.

            His pulse pounds hard in his ears and his chest. He pushes out of the kitchen, and then through the living room to the stairs, blood roaring so loudly that it's not until halfway up the stairs that he hears the stumbling steps behind him and realizes that Cas has followed him.

            Panic spikes through him first, and then anger because he's a fucking adult, for God's sake, and then more guilt, because Cas is stumbling, leaving heavily against the banister. He turns around and slings Cas's arm over his shoulder, stiffening when Cas's hot breath hits his neck. He keeps his eyes and face away as he drags them both up the stairs, toward the door with "ANSON DICKFACE THE THIRD" written on a whiteboard nailed to it.

            It's too easy to fall back into the motions, putting the unresisting body on its side, getting the arm under the head to keep it up; the shoelaces get pulled off first, then the socks. Like he's inside a kaleidoscope, the same pieces of colored glass, just making different shapes this time; nothing's changed, not really, and in that tunnel-like place it takes a minute for him to realize Cas is laughing. It's not a happy laugh, it's a gasping one, wetness gleaming on Cas's face in the light from the hallway.

            "I watched it," he laughs. "I watched _Star Wars_ , Dean, but Alfie doesn't know." His laughter dissolves, crumples like wet cardboard. " _Dean._ He's never going to know."

            Dean says nothing. He knows these sobs, the sounds like someone's heart is being torn out, like Cas is trying to tear his heart out himself with the force of his gasps. He's no stranger to them, but that doesn't make it easier, to hear them from Cas's chest, to feel Cas gripping him like he's being dragged underwater and Dean's the only thing he's got to hold onto.

            Eventually Cas cries himself to sleep. His hand goes slack and falls from Dean's arm, and Dean gets up and tilts him on his side again, bunching up the comforter to keep him propped up. Then he goes out into the hallway and finds the bathroom.

            Sam answers on the second ring. "Dean?"

            "Cas is freaking the fuck out," he blurts out. Then immediately feels stupid and tries to fix it. "I mean--we're kind of on a--like, a trip, and he just--he's smashed, man, I dunno what set him off, but he's--"

            He stops again, sucking in a shaky breath. He sounds close to tears, and he knows it, and Sam knows it, and he hates how gentle his brother's voice sounds, on the other end of the phone because Sam's not supposed to be the one taking care of _him_. "Dean. Dean, it's okay. Calm down. Where are you?"

            He grinds the heel of his palm into his eyes. Inhales again. "Uh. Just--some place. A party."

            "You got Cas to go to a party?" Amusement colors Sam's voice. "What the hell, did you and Ash tie him down or something?"

            " _Sam_."

            "Sorry," Sam says immediately. "Look, what is he--did he say anything?"

            "Yeah, just--" Dean pinches the bridge of his nose. "Something about watching something, and his brother--I don't know, it didn't make sense."

            Sam's quiet for a moment. Then he says gently, "Dean, you think maybe he's grieving?"

            Dean stills. "Grieving for what?"

            Sam is quiet for even longer this time. It gives the dread in Dean's gut time to build, time to spread out and touch every inch of his insides with icy fingers.

            Finally, Sam says, "He didn't tell you." His voice is flat.

            Dean grips the phone harder. Sam exhales, a long hiss into the phone speaker. "Dean, his brother passed away in April."

            Dean tries to breathe.

            "I was sure he told you. I mean, when you guys came to Nashville, he seemed so--you two were so--"

            He breaks off. Dean presses the phone harder to his ear and closes his eyes. Sees Cas's hand around his wrist in the darkness, the too-slow rise and fall of his chest, like a thousand patients he's seen in the ER, like late nights in a kitchen listening to a voice talk about what it's like to be in hell.

            "Dean?" Sam sounds worried.

            Dean clears his throat. "I'm here." His voice sounds rusty, an old faucet. "I'll--I'll talk to you later, Sam."

            "Dean, wait--!"

            He hangs up.

 

\- o -

_"They_ killed _us!" Joseph shouted at Samandriel. "Are you really expecting me to just forgive and forget?"_

\- o -

 

            When Castiel wakes the next morning, groggy and miserable, he's the only one in the bed.

            Even before he remembers what happened the night before, a feeling of _Fuck. Fuck. Fuck_ keeps him nailed to the mattress, face in the pillow. But it's not until he turns his head and sees the empty hanger where Dean's interview suit hung the day before that his stomach drops out. 

 

\- o -

 

            He sits on a bench outside El Camino Hospital for fifteen minutes before Dean walks out of the main entrance. He looks tired despite the neatly pressed lines of his blue suit and the carefully gelled spikes of his hair, pushing his sunglasses on slowly with two hands. He looks out across the parking lot, and as with that time at the clinic, Castiel sees the moment Dean spots him from the way his posture stiffens.

            Castiel pushes to his feet and walks toward him. He has his car keys in one hand, a venti-sized coffee for Dean in the other. "How did it go?"

            The lenses of his aviators are too dark to see through. "Okay, I guess."

            Castiel waits for more of a response. When it doesn't come, he holds the coffee out to Dean. "I'm sorry for last night."

            Dean takes the coffee. But he doesn't drink from it, not even once they're in Castiel's car, pulling out of the hospital's visitor parking lot. He just stares out the window at the palm trees lining the side of the road.

            Traffic isn't great this time of morning, so at the third red light they encounter, Castiel says, "Last night, what I said about my brother--"

            "You don't have to talk about it."

            Castiel stops.

            They get back to Andy's house, where almost everyone is still asleep, and carry their bags back out to Castiel's car. Castiel leaves a hastily scrawled thank you note for Andy and a Starbucks gift card on top of the island. His hangover should be gone by now, but nausea still swims in his insides, tightening his gut.

            When he gets out to the car, Dean's already sitting in the passenger seat. He has a textbook open on his lap, and he doesn't say anything when Castiel gets in the car, nor as they pull out of Palo Alto. The coffee stays in the cup holder between them, sloshing as Castiel accelerates to pull onto the interstate, and for a while, it's the only sound in the car, aside from the whisper of Dean's book when he turns the pages.

            By the time they pull off the interstate to check into a motel for the night, Dean still hasn't spoken. Castiel's shaken enough to ask for a room with two beds, rather than the one they've grown accustomed to, and when they walk into the room, Dean walks across it and drops his bag on the bed further from the door, crawls under the covers without undressing. The silence lies heavily next to Castiel under the sheets as he stares at the ceiling and tries to think of how he could possibly fix this.

 

\- o -

 

            The apartment is warm and musty-smelling when they get back. Dean goes to the corner of the living room to turn the air conditioner back on; Castiel stops just inside the door, letting his duffel slump to the floor. "Dean."

            Dean makes a vague sound.

            Castiel inhales. "Why are you angry?"

            Dean sighs. Turns around.

            " _Dean_."

            "I'm not angry." Dean's voice is a rasp, barely used in the past two days. He glances at Cas for the barest moment, then moves to go into the bedroom.

            Castiel steps in front of him.

            "Cas. Move."

            "No."

            Dean's eyes flare. They fly up to Castiel's, and that abruptly, Dean is stiff, is drawn-back shoulders and flashing eyes. "Fine. You wanna know what I'm pissed about, Cas?" He barely waits for Castiel's tight nod. "Your brother's been dead since April, and I had to find out from _Sam_!"

            Castiel's face turns to ice. He suddenly hates Dean more than anyone else he's ever met.

            "I mean--not once. Not even _once_ did you say anything like--"

            "Perhaps," Castiel says icily, "I had no wish to tell you, Dean, did that possibility occur to you?"

            Dean breaks off. Stares at Castiel with a betrayed look, and for a moment there's nothing but that, their gazes, burning into one another's.

            "Look," Dean says finally. He draws his bottom lip under his teeth, and there's a clear effort at calmness in his voice. "Look, man. I get it. Wanting to be someone else, wanting to pretend shit didn't happen? I get that.

             "But I--" He expels a breath. "Cas, I told you _everything_. And you--man, I feel like I don't even know you."

            Castiel says nothing. Dean's eyes search his face and don't find what they're looking for.

            "Informed consent, man," he says softly. "Did that stuff not mean anything to you?"

            Castiel nearly laughs. He suddenly feels like something he wasn't a minute ago, like something stone and ugly. "You're not a patient, Dean. And I'm not here to fix you, remember?"

            A huff of breath that's not really laughter. "Yeah," Dean says. "No, I get that now."

            He grabs his keys, pauses at the door with his eyes on the knob. "Don't wait up," he says, before he closes it behind him.

 

\- o -

 

            _Maybe this was how it happened, Samandriel thought as Joseph and the Amazon disappeared into the roar of light. It wasn't action that ruined angels but_ in _action: the rain sluicing down the same spots, wearing down the same erosions over and over because the angels refused to move, to enter the world below them. Time carved them into gargoyles, still and monstrous as they watched the moving things beneath their feet._

_Maybe this was how they fell._

 

\- o -

 

            Bobby has a fax machine in his den. He sits in his wheelchair next to it and studies Dean's employment contract as it feeds slowly into the machine. If he makes anything of the fact that it's for a hospital in Montana instead of California, he doesn't say anything about it.

            Dean leans against the bookshelf, chin digging into his chest, and listens to the too-loud beeps as the fax is sent.

            Bobby waits until the machine falls quiet. Then he says, "I could throttle you, boy."

            Dean says nothing.

            "You got family here." Bobby's voice is taut. "What're you goin' and tryin' to leave it all for?"

            Dean shakes his head. "I'm tired, Bobby."

            Bobby growls. Dean shakes his head again, his arms coming up over his chest. "I love you guys, but I--I need to go somewhere no one knows me. _I_ need not to know me."

            Bobby stares at him. He's got that look on his face, the one that makes Dean look away, but when he says, "Get over here," Dean goes. He rocks down onto his knees beside Bobby's wheelchair and presses his forehead against the vinyl armrest.

            Bobby squeezes his arms. "You learned all the wrong things from that Novak kid. Just 'cause he's gonna be a doctor don't mean he ain't a fuckin' idiot."

            Dean shakes his head against the vinyl. "It's not about him, Bobby." Because it's not, not really. Maybe this stuff with Cas is what pushed him into doing something about it, but this is something in him that's always needed fixing. Something that's always needed too much from other people because he's not enough for himself.

            Not enough for anyone.

            "You keep in touch with me, boy." Bobby grips his arms harder. "Becky's gonna teach me how to do that Skype crap, and you better pick up when I call you."

            "Yeah." Dean digs his chin hard into Bobby's shoulder and grips his vest. He isn't fast enough to close his eyes before something hot and wet races down his cheek. "I will, Bobby."

 

\- o -

 

            Castiel is on the couch with his palms against his forehead when Dean's key scrapes in the lock. He looks up when Dean comes inside holding a sheaf of papers, meeting his tired gaze.

            "Cas," he says. Closes the door behind him. "We gotta talk."

            Dread sits like a stone in Castiel's stomach. He lowers his hands from his face and nods.

            "I... I think you should leave."

            "Dean." Panic flashes through him. "I can--look, I'll--"

            "Cas," Dean says. He steps closer. "Will you believe me if I tell you this isn't about you?"

            Castiel laughs bitterly. Dean doesn't. They stare at each other.

            "Cas," Dean says finally. "Please don't make me beg."

            That's the last thing Castiel wants, after everything. He moves to get his suitcase, pauses as he unzips it. "If you get the job in El--"

            Dean shakes his head, and Cas cuts himself off, nods.

            "I understand," he says, though he doesn't. Not yet. Maybe he will someday, when his brain isn't buzzing with guilt and _no no no_ and shame and pride, but for now he just goes to the couch and crouches to pull his things from under it, to wheel his suitcase out with the pounds and pounds of books inside it.

            "Your scrubs," Dean begins.

            "Keep them." Cas's voice is sharp, sharper than he intends it, and they both flinch. But Cas doesn't turn back to make eye contact, just tightens his grip on his bag and says, "Goodbye, Dean," before closing the door behind him.

 

\- o -

 

            He goes back to Syracuse. Where else is there to go?

            It takes a day and night of solid driving, the radio silent and engine quiet. Castiel stops only to use the restroom, and for caffeine.

            The house, he expects, will be empty. His mother is mostly likely at one of her countless meetings, Inias acting as chauffeur,  and there is no one else, now, to fill the empty rooms. But when he parks in the garage and unlocks the door to the kitchen, lamplight and voices and clanking pans greet him.

            He stops short in the doorway. His father is in front of the stove, and his mother is sitting at the table. And they are both staring at Castiel, eyes wide.

            Castiel stares back. Then he clears his throat.

            "I'm home."

            His voice cracks, rusty, like he hasn't used it in twenty-four hours, and that's because he hasn't, and because his vision is suddenly blurring as he slides into the chair next to Naomi's.

            "Castiel." She's suddenly there, crouching next to him, cupping his head and pulling him to her. "Oh, Castiel, sweetheart..."

            He cries into her neck as she holds him. Cries like he hasn't since the last night he was here, and she strokes his hair and murmurs, "Sshhh, sshhh," and at some point Dad comes over with a glass of water and sets it at Cas's side on the table. His hand hovers over Castiel's shoulder, a warm weight, before he pulls away.

            The story of his summer spills out slowly. Like pus from an abscess, in gushes and then trickles, painful as it emerges but leaving a strange relief behind it, an eased pressure. He tells them about leaving because of Alfie, and meeting Ellen with her headaches and her kindness, and Dean with his gruffness, and Jo and Ruby and Adam and Jesse, and Sam's new job, and Dr. Marv, and Palo Alto and Dean's interview and _Alfie_ , and that's where he peters out, guilty and heartsick and tired.

            His parents look at each other. The sad glance they share is reassuring, somehow, despite everything, because they haven't looked at each other like this since before the divorce.

            "Castiel," Chuck says after a moment. There are deep bags under his eyes, and wrinkles at the corners of them. But his hands don't tremble as he reaches out and puts one next to Castiel's wrist. Not touching, but close. "You know what your mom used to call me?"

            Castiel searches his face. He glances at his mother, who's pulled over a chair to sit beside him. Her eyes are red-rimmed when they meet his, as if she has been crying herself.

            "The great escapist," she says. There's a hint of her old bitterness in the words, the bite of sarcasm that must have been there years ago, but mostly she just sounds tired, wiping her eyes. "Because whenever we had problems in real life, you withdrew and hid in your writing instead of helping me deal with them."

            Dean's voice in his head. _Join the club. We're all shitty versions of our parents._ Castiel nearly laughs. Clenches a hand in his hair instead, shoving away from the table.

            He grabs the handle of his suitcase to take it upstairs. Then he pauses at the foot of the staircase and turns back. Both his parents are watching him.

            "You're going to be here tonight?" he says. "Both of you?"

            They trade that look again. "Yes," Chuck says.

            He takes a deep breath. "I have something I could use both your feedback on."

 

\- o -

 

            Naomi fusses over the essay. She clucks and smoothes his hair back and tells him how proud she is of him before she orders him to get her a pen and proceeds to cross out half of his sentences. It's no less than he'd expected of his mother, but if Castiel is honest, it's really Chuck's feedback he's waiting for.

            But when his father comes into Alfie's bedroom where Castiel is kneeling in front of the bookshelf, the essay he hands Castiel doesn't have any marks on it at all.

             He looks up. Chuck gives him an uncertain smile. "It's really good, Cas."

            Castiel looks down at it, running his finger down the edge of the paper. _Helping Hands Clinic, Lawrence, KS_ , the header reads. _Writer: Cas Novak-Shurley._

            "Really good," Chuck says again.

            Castiel nods. Chuck moves further into the room, sitting gingerly on the red ottoman next to him. They both stare at Alfie's bookshelf, at the two shelves crammed with the worn spines of all eight arcs of Chuck's books.

            Chuck clears his throat. "Your mom said you weren't writing anymore."

            Castiel shakes his head. "I'm still writing. I'm just...doing other things, too." He glances over at his dad. "This summer changed a lot of things."

            "Yeah." Chuck has something in his hands, fidgeting with it. Castiel looks at it, brow furrowing, and looks up at Chuck. He gives the tiniest smile and hands it to Castiel.

            It's a sobriety chip.

            "Three months," Chuck says.

            Castiel rubs his thumb across it, feeling the ridges. Then he reaches into his bag and takes out _Pac-Man Fever_.

            Chuck takes it with a creased forehead, looking at the cover. He opens it. His eyes go wide, then wet.

            Castiel watches him. "It was in my mailbox in Palo Alto. I guess he sent it right before."

            Chuck is shaking his head. "I didn't know he was still reading them."

            "I stopped reading them," Castiel says. There's guilt in his voice, knotted up with the resentment. He's always been the brother with no faith. The Cain to Alfie's Abel. "Alfie never did."

            Chuck has the pages open to a chapter break. His finger traces the black and white illustration of a hobbit hole. "You remember the year he was a hobbit for Halloween?"

            Castiel shakes his head.         

            "He was so excited. He spent weeks making these hideous papier-mâché feet with Barbie hair glued to them--we had all these Barbies with shaved heads lying on the floor, it drove your mom crazy. And then after he spent all that time making the feet, it started raining while you two were trick or treating and the papier-mâché came apart." Chuck starts to chuckle, smiling beneath the tears glistening in his beard. "He pitched such a fit, I was afraid someone was going to call the police about us."

            "I gave him a piggyback ride home," Castiel says slowly. The forgotten details floating back to the surface: promising to give Alfie all his Kit Kats if he would stop crying, Alfie's hot lollipop breath on his cheek as he climbed onto Castiel's back, the cold rain trickling under his Constantine collar when Alfie's weight dragged it down. "I remember. I'd forgotten that. About his feet."

            They're quiet for a moment.

            "When he was born," Chuck says abruptly. "I was holding your mom's hand, and when he came out, there was--there was so much blood, Cas. I'd never seen that much blood. And he was so quiet, he wasn't crying at all, and the terror that goes through you when you see that, when your baby's not moving--"

            Castiel holds his father's hand. It trembles in his grip.

            "I would have done anything," Chuck whispers. " _Anything_."

            Castiel is silent. He thinks of crossroads deals under night skies and thunder, under the stark fluorescent lighting of hospital rooms and hallways. Maybe that's what his father's writing is, maybe that's what writing has always been: the things a person can't bear, that they can't hold. The things so immense they spill out, or over, or get thrown back up because they're just too much. Too big or too poisonous to be taken in, and they come back out changed from what they were, like burgers and hot dogs and nectar and honey.

            Gently, he pushes his fingers between his father's. They're smoother than he remembers, the rough raised calluses Chuck used to have from holding his pens. They're soft and flat against the places on Castiel's palm that have gone rough and ridged from working in the clinic every day, the callus on his fourth finger where his pen rubs when he writes.

            Castiel opens his hand, letting go. Then he slides his palm up his father's arm to rest just below his shoulder. Curls his fingers around it.

            Chuck looks down at Castiel's hand, gripping him tight.

            Then he begins to cry.

 

\- o -

 

            _"Hey," a voice said._

_Samandriel looked up. There was a bright light between the dark trees, a set of figures silhouetted against it. One with yellow eyes and another with ragged wings as ruined as his own, but in front of all of them was someone else, was someone holding his hand out to Samandriel and gripping his shoulder when Samandriel didn't reach back._

_"Joseph?" he whispered. Because there were things here that pretended to be what they weren't. Things that an angel with no Grace had no defense against other than to stop believing._

_But what was an angel with no faith and no Grace?_

_"I've got you," Joseph was saying. Was crouching and holding Samandriel's temples cupped in his palms, pressing their foreheads together until it hurt, until Samandriel's blood-stiff cap slid off his head and fell onto the ground beside them. "I've got you, man."_

_And the words felt like a supernova inside him. Felt like being an_ angel _again, full of heat and light and trust, and Samandriel gripped handfuls of Joseph's shirt, gripped it like if he held on hard enough he could grab hold of his glowing, sewn-together soul._

_"I," he said slowly. "I think I'm ready to blow his hot dog stand, Joseph."_

_He reached for his Wiener Hut cap and pushed it back onto his head._

_Joseph's laughter rang through Purgatory._

 

\- o -

 

            Castiel leans into his father as he cries. When he's done, wiping his eyes with his sleeve, Castiel stirs against him.

            "Wait here," he says, and gets up.

            His suit case is in his room. Inside it, under the stacks of his father's books, is the draft of the Samandriel story he took on the trip to Palo Alto, intending to edit it while Dean drove. He tugs it out, and a small piece of notepad paper flutters to the floor. It lands upside down, but he can still make out the green logo at the top. **Propecia: the only FDA-Approved Pill Proven to Treat Male Pattern Hair Loss**!

            He bites his lip and turns it over.

            _Cas--_

_You're gonna change somebody's life someday._

            There's nothing written under that. Just a doodle of a single ragged feather, its vane long and fragile.

            Castiel remembers the smell of leather car seats in the heat, Dean's features edged gold by the sun. The way his lip looked, drawn under his teeth as he said, _I spent--_ so many _hours in those stupid waiting rooms, Cas._

            Castiel pushes to his feet.

            Then he picks up his story and goes to share it with his father.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

**rating:** M

 **warnings:** None. 

 **notes** : Completely fictional write-up of Parker Indian Hospital--they actually only employ a few doctors, not the larger roster described here.

 

 

 

**epilogue**

_"Maybe to fix it."_

\-- "The Born-Again Identity," 7.17

 

            "Holy crap! Are those all yours, Dr. N?"

            Castiel looks up. Ava is leaning inside with her brown support staff coat half on, one arm pushed through the sleeve and one not as she gapes at the row of Venti-sized Starbucks cups sitting next to Castiel's keyboard.

            "Ah," he says guiltily. "Yes."

            Ava shoves her other arm into her coat. "What's the matter, had a long day?"

            "Long _days_." Castiel scrubs his jaw with one hand, looking at the clock at the bottom of his computer screen. His shift began at seven a.m. Thursday, and it's now nearly eleven p.m., Friday. "Dr. Uriel came down with the flu."

            "Should've gotten his flu shot," Ava says with a grin. There's no love lost between her and the other doctor, who consistently calls the emergency support staff members _you_ or _girl_ rather than by their names. "So, what, are you stuck here for the rest of the weekend?"

            Castiel looks at the clock again. "No, I called in a favor to Rachel." The other radiologist usually practices in Page, but she sometimes picks up shifts in Parker. When Castiel called and told her about his situation, she agreed to drive over and take a twelve-hour shift so he could get some sleep. "She should be here shortly."

            "All right." Ava glances at the cups again. "You need another one to make it till she gets here? I can run downstairs."

            "I think the barista has already closed up for the night. But thank you, Ava."

            She dimples at him. "Just buttering you up for my letter of rec," she says, and disappears back out the door.

            Castiel smiles vaguely and turns back to the computer screen, checking to see whether another image has come in.

            He hasn't been in Arizona long, perhaps six months. Long enough for him to find out there's not much to do here, with the closest shopping centers, and what his mother would call _civilization,_ at least an hour away. But the isolation is an advantage in its own way, providing long quiet hours in which to write. He sent off his second book only a few weeks ago, and has fifty pages of a third sitting on the hard drive of his laptop to send to his father for feedback when he gets a chance. He thinks this one may be more interesting as a graphic novel than a conventional text, and he's already sent Jesse an e-mail asking if he would be interested in taking on the project as co-creator.

            Of all the people he met that summer in Kansas, Ruby and her boys ended up being the only ones with whom he still has any real contact. Even his correspondence with Sam fell off after that summer, Sam transferring to Vanderbilt to continue working for Gabriel Milton. They never spoke of Dean, but the thought of him dwelt in every uncertain pause in their phone conversation, in every absent emoticon in Sam's increasingly less frequent texts. But Ruby's e-mail address popped up in Castiel's inbox one day not long after he left Lawrence-- _My blabbermouth son won't stop asking how you're doing, so if you'd please email him a message back we'd all be a lot happier_ \--and they've been in contact ever since. Ruby's been working as an NP for a while now, after taking classes part-time for years, and Castiel recently wrote a letter of recommendation for Adam for the University of Wisconsin. He gets weekly texts from all of them, but most frequently from Jesse, who's finishing up a sequential art degree and sends Castiel picture messages of his portfolio items as he finishes them.

             None of them live in Lawrence anymore, so the city, and the summer he spent there, aren't on Castiel's mind nearly as much as they used to be. Still, Castiel would be lying if he said he doesn't still think of Dean Winchester now and then. When he glimpses drawn-looking patients reading books in hospital waiting rooms, or on hot days when he had to wait for his car to air out before getting in. But it's become more memory than bruise, now, something to appreciate rather than be pained by, to resent or stew in guilt over.

            Which is why he doesn't expect the violence of his reaction, when he sees the provider identifier on the chest X-ray that comes in while he waits for Rachel.

            Usually he only checks which provider ordered the X-ray when it's a complicated case. But today, for some reason, he glances at it before looking at the X-ray itself, and there it is in the tiny cramped font of their electronic charting system: **WINCHESTER, DEAN--ARNP.**

            His swivel chair clatters to the floor behind him.

            Rachel's coming down the hallway when he bursts out of the door. She stops short, saying, "Castiel, what--?"

            But he's already pounding past her, breathing hard. There's a strange feeling burgeoning inside him, as he races down the hallway with his white coat flapping behind him: For a fleeting moment he feels like the angel in his father's books, coat heavy with memories and mistakes and burdens and hopes.

            Then he's bursting through the double doors and jerking to a stop right in front of the nurses' station because Dean's _there_. Right in the very first Intensive Care room, the sleeves of his white coat rolled up to his elbows as he stitches closed a laceration on the patient's leg, his bottom lip drawn under his teeth in concentration.

            He glances up at the patient  after a moment, saying something to her as he ties off the suture with his forceps. Castiel can't hear the words, but his voice carries through the half-open door, thrums in Castiel's bones like the vibrations from a tuning fork. He's curling his hands into fists against the sound when Dean turns and their eyes meet through the Plexiglas.

            Dean's eyes fly wide. Castiel takes an automatic step back. They stare at each other for a moment longer, their faces mirrors of uncertainty. Then Dean turns and says something to the patient.

            A moment later he's slipping out of the door, pulling the curtain and door both closed behind him. "Cas?"

            "Ah." Cas's hands spasm; he scrabbles into his pocket for the print-out he'd grabbed from the printer on the way here. "Right lateral decubitus film shows blunted cardiophrenic angle consistent with right-sided pleural effusion. Fluid noted in the horizontal fissure..." He trails off as he realizes what he's doing, heat spreading up his neck. "Uh. Hello, Dean."

            "Hey yourself!" Dean's smiling then, pushing forward. He's grabbing Cas's shoulder, giving him a shake. "The hell're you doing here, man?"

            "I work here." Cas slowly regains his equilibrium, clears his throat as Dean lets go of his shoulder. "Radiology."

            "No kidding, I could tell from the recitation." Dean gives him a wry look. "You just start your shift? Because I'm about to get off, and I--"

            "I'm off," Cas blurts out as Dean finishes, "could use a burger."

            They stare at each other. Then Dean's mouth hooks up in a grin, and Cas feels his own doing the same, and Dean is grabbing his shoulder again.

            "Damn, it's good to see you." He gives Castiel another shake, holding on like he can't quite bring himself to let go. "I'm digging the peach fuzz, by the way. It's a good look on you."

            Cas's hand comes up to his face, feeling the prickles along his jaw. "It's called the _I've been here since Friday morning_ look," he says dryly. He looks at Dean, fondness swelling behind his ribs, up his throat to push at the corners of his lips. "Dean."

            "Cas," Dean mimics, grinning.

            "Dean." Cas takes an uncertain step closer. "We didn't part...friends."

            Dean's eyes are clear and serious. "No."

            Cas falters. Closes his mouth.

            "But I'm not exactly the same guy I was." Dean is watching him, carefully. "And call me on it if I'm wrong, Cas, but I'm betting you aren't, either."

            Cas looks down, studying his hands. He's touched more patients with them, typed more words with them, than he ever could have fathomed when he was twenty-two, trapped in the tunnel vision of grief and anger and a desperate need to escape. They're at once rougher and gentler, more calloused and more deliberate than they were then. But they're also still the hands that once cupped Dean's rough jaw, stroked through his sweaty hair and traced down his soft skin.

            "What do you say?" Dean says. Holds out his hand, palm up. "Should we give it another try?"

            Cas looks down at Dean's hand. Traces his fingers along the new calluses he doesn't remember, the old ones that he does.

            Then he closes his own hand around it and looks up at Dean. "I'd like that."

 

 

 

  

 

 

_"Let me tell you my story._

_Let me tell you everything."_

\-- "The Man Who Would Be King," 6.20

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Fireworks](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1402924) by [8sword](https://archiveofourown.org/users/8sword/pseuds/8sword)




End file.
